A lifelong scholar, Butler grew up in South Africa and graduated from Rhodes University there, receiving first a bachelor’s then a master’s in 1939.
Gallery of Frederick Butler
1947
Radcliffe Sq, Oxford OX1 4AJ, United Kindom
Butler followed that with another bachelor’s and a second master’s degree, this time from Brasenose College at Oxford University. After the war, Guy Butler read English literature at Brasenose College, Oxford University, graduating in 1947.
Butler followed that with another bachelor’s and a second master’s degree, this time from Brasenose College at Oxford University. After the war, Guy Butler read English literature at Brasenose College, Oxford University, graduating in 1947.
Frederick Guy Butler was a South African poet, playwright, director, historian, autobiographer, essayist. He was also a gorgeous academic and public intellectual.
Background
Frederick Guy Butler was born on January 21, 1918, in Cradock, Cape Province, South Africa. He was a son of Ernest Collett Butler and Alice Eyre Butler. Frederick had siblings: Joan Butler, Dorothy Butler, Christine Moys (Butler), and Jeffrey Butler.
Education
A lifelong scholar, Butler grew up in South Africa and graduated from Rhodes University there, receiving first a bachelor’s then a master’s in 1939. He followed that with another bachelor’s and a second master’s degree, this time from Brasenose College at Oxford University. World War II interrupted Guy Butler's educational career, and Butler served in the South African Army from 1940 until 1945. After the war, Guy Butler read English literature at Brasenose College, Oxford University, graduating in 1947.
Guy Butler began writing during military service in North Africa and Europe (1940–1945). After studying at the University of Oxford, he joined the faculty of Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, and from 1953 to 1978 headed the school’s English department. Guy Butler studied and edited diaries of colonial settlers and edited an influential magazine of contemporary poetry, New Coin, but he was also considerably involved in the theatre.
Guy Butler's first play, The Dam (1953), took a prize at the Van Riebeeck Festival, and subsequent verse dramas include The Dove Returns (1954), Take Root or Die (1966), and Cape Charade (1967). Stranger to Europe (1952) contains some of Butler’s first poetry.
Other poetry volumes include Selected Poems (1975), Songs and Ballads (1978), and Pilgrimage to Dias Cross (1987). In 1989 Guy Butler edited (with Jeff Opland) The Magic Tree, a collection of 119 narrative poems translated from several South African languages and chosen for their South African setting. His nonfiction work includes The Prophetic Nun (2000), which chronicles the lives of several nuns, and three volumes of autobiography, Karoo Morning (1977), Bursting World (1983), and A Local Habitation (1991).
Guy Butler promoted the culture of English-speaking South Africans, which led to the charge of separatism from some critics, although he argued for integration rather than exclusivity.
Membership
English Academy of South Africa
,
South Africa
Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa
1985
Interests
Sport & Clubs
Golf
Connections
In 1940 Frederick Guy Butler married Jean Murray Satchwell. They gave birth to children: David, Jane, Christopher and Patrick.