…Oxford for my tutor. I took the English literature at Oxford, and these were essays on all sorts of literary subjects, I mean from Chaucer down to the present day. And I was interested and surprised to find that I was writing quite well at that time. I…

…which they find themselves, and others who find it necessary to modify that tradition. I mean, after all, take the case of Chaucer. I mean, here you had a man who out of the blue, really developed psychology. I mean, his contemporaries and his…

…level. But my goodness, how good Homer is anyhow. Well, I'll tell you another absolutely sublime writer who has this, which is Chaucer, of course. It's one of the great misfortunes of English literature that he wrote at a time when his language is now…

…which to me is the most extraordinary thing. And take, for example, a man, a poet I happen to be very fond of, Chaucer. I mean, read the prologue to the Canterbury Tales. You will be amazed at the amount of pure character drawing which comes through…

…may ask why what is the point of classical education I mean after all Virgil and Homer seem a very long way away even Chaucer and Shakespeare seem a very long way away so why bother with classical education well the answer has been given many times and…