The Oxford Wits, a term coined later, were an identifiable group of literary and intellectual aesthetes and dandies, present as undergraduates at the University of Oxford in England in the first half of the 1920s.
Their leader in fashion was Harold Acton, but their later leader in intellectual matters was more noticeably Maurice Bowra. Their attitudes were those portrayed and parodied in the nostalgic Brideshead Revisited of Evelyn Waugh, the most important literary figure to emerge from the group.
Others who are cited as Oxford Wits are John Betjeman, Robert Byron, Cyril Connolly, Brian Howard, Alan Pryce-Jones, John Sparrow, John Sutro, and Christopher Sykes.
Famous quotes containing the words oxford and/or wits:
“During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.”
—Bernard Lewis, U.S. Middle Eastern specialist. Islam and the West, ch. 8, Oxford University Press (1993)
“Three foolish cobblers with their wits combined equal Zhuge Liang, the master mind.”
—Chinese proverb.