George Stuart Gordon

Who was George Stuart Gordon?

George Stuart Gordon was a British literary scholar.

Gordon was educated at Glasgow University and Oriel College, Oxford, where he received a First Class in Classical Moderations in 1904, Literae Humaniores in 1906, and the Stanhope Prize in 1905. He was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1907 to 1915.

Gordon was Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds from 1913 to 1922. Later he was Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford from 1922 to 1928, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, Professor of Poetry there, and Vice-Chancellor. He was one of the Kolbítar, J. R. R. Tolkien's group of readers of Icelandic sagas.

Gordon famously argued that English Literature was capable of having a widespread and positive influence. In his inaugural lecture for his Merton professorship he agued that "England is sick, and … English literature must save it. The Churches having failed, and social remedies being slow, English literature has now a triple function: still, I suppose, to delight and instruct us, but also, and above all, to save our souls and heal the State".

His son George Gordon was a noted physiologist.