1939
Drosty Rd, Grahamstown, 6139, South Africa
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.
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.
1939
Drosty Rd, Grahamstown, 6139, South Africa
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.
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.
https://www.amazon.com/Dam-Play-Three-Acts/dp/B00138JGXU/?tag=2022091-20
1953
https://www.amazon.com/Cape-Charade-Kaatjie-Kekkelbek-Butler/dp/B008HPV7BG/?tag=2022091-20
1968
https://www.amazon.com/Take-root-die-Guy-Butler/dp/B005IBL15O/?tag=2022091-20
1970
https://www.amazon.com/Tales-old-Karoo-Guy-Butler/dp/086852168X/?tag=2022091-20
1989
https://www.amazon.com/Rackety-Colt-Guy-Butler/dp/B001CKXIN8/?tag=2022091-20
1989
https://www.amazon.com/Demea-Guy-Butler/dp/0864861699/?tag=2022091-20
1990
https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-Guy-Butler/dp/0864864396/?tag=2022091-20
1999
director essayist historian playwright autobiographer poet
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.
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 was the driving force behind the founding of a number of university departments (Rhodes University Department of Speech and Drama, Linguistics and English Language, and Journalism and Media Studies), helped set up a number of institutes and societies (the Institute for the Study of English in Africa (ISEA), the National English Literary Museum (NELM), the Shakespeare Society of South Africa). Perhaps his most notable achievement, however, was the founding of the 1820 Settler's Foundation, which led to the building of the Festival Theatre in Grahamstown and thus to the annual Grahamstown Arts Festival.
Guy Butler was influential in achieving the recognition of South African English Literature as an accepted discipline.
The main theatre in the 1820 Settlers National Monument in Grahamstown is named in his honour. Guy Butler House, a student residence at Rhodes University is also named after him.
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.
In 1940 Frederick Guy Butler married Jean Murray Satchwell. They gave birth to children: David, Jane, Christopher and Patrick.
