Hugo Dyson

Dyson taught English at the University of Reading from 1924 until obtaining a fellowship with Merton College, Oxford, in 1945.[2] His students at Oxford included the later cultural theorist Stuart Hall, whom he tutored in the early 1950s.[3] Dyson retired in 1963 but returned as emeritus fellow in 1969, teaching the newly introduced "modern" literature paper. His tutorials were notable because many of the writers he discussed had been personal friends.

Dyson was not a prolific writer, but the quality and voluminous quantity of his lectures and general conversation had quite an effect on people. He wrote the introduction of his first published book Poetry and Prose (1933), which is a collection of works of Alexander Pope with notes by Dyson.[4] Another of his few publications is Augustans and Romantics, 1689–1830 (1940),[5] a survey of contemporary English literature with a bibliography by Professor John Butt.[4]

Dyson preferred talk at Inklings meetings to readings. He had a distaste for J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and complained loudly at its readings.[6][7] Eventually Tolkien gave up reading to the group altogether.

Dyson, an expert on Shakespeare, was asked during the early 1960s to host some televised lectures and plays about the writer. Dyson's relaxed style resulted in him being cast in a small part in the 1965 film Darling[8] as Professor Walter Southgate, a major literary character.