'For over forty years, Barry Spurr has created a significant body of work in English literary scholarship, spanning a wide range of fields from Early Modern literature to contemporary Australian poetry. Barry Spurr is acknowledged as a leading scholar in the fields of religious literature and liturgical language, most notably in the works of Renaissance poet John Donne, the Modernist poet T.S. Eliot, and the language and literature of the Anglo-Catholic tradition. He was appointed by the University of Sydney as Australia's first Professor of Poetry and Poetics, and holds a notable reputation as a teacher and mentor to students, and as a friend to peers and colleagues. He has also been notable as a public intellectual, with a particular interest in the role of literature in the modern education system, and the role of the humanities in the modern university.
'This book is a collection of scholarly papers, contemplative essays and poems, written or contributed in honour of Barry Spurr. The Festschrift's contributors include his former teachers and mentors, his students and colleagues, and includes scholars and public intellectuals in his fields of scholarship or public interest. This Festschrift is a very fine collection of poetry, public discourse and literary criticism, on topics ranging from the works of William Shakespeare, to John Milton, T.S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, and Wilfred Owen, in addition to scholarship on liturgical language and religious and literary philosophy.' (Publication summary)
'In his essay “Reflections on Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion” (1948) L. C.
Knights draws a comparison between Clarendon and Trotsky as historians, much to Trotsky’s disadvantage.' (Introduction)
'Professor Barry Spurr and I were in class together with Dame Leonie Kramer in the early 1970s. Then, as a friend and student colleague, he was always a wonderfully strong and committed champion of Australian literature, especially poetry. I have watched with awe and wonder his rise to academic distinction at the University of Sydney as Australia’s first Professor of Poetry and Poetics. I was particularly interested in his passion for religious poetry in English and his deep and searching expertise on T.S. Eliot, especially the Four Quartets. The sad circumstances of Barry’s retirement from the University of Sydney in 2015 after forty years of service at that institution are perhaps well known. These circumstances illustrate the illusion of so-called academic freedom in this country, which allows the digital hacking of a private correspondence to become the basis for a politically motivated vendetta against some of Barry’s probably misperceived attitudes. The fact that this situation was never brought to a fair hearing and was the direct cause of Barry’s enforced retirement sent shock waves through the academic community at the University of Sydney and more widely in this country.' (Introduction)
'Professor Barry Spurr and I were in class together with Dame Leonie Kramer in the early 1970s. Then, as a friend and student colleague, he was always a wonderfully strong and committed champion of Australian literature, especially poetry. I have watched with awe and wonder his rise to academic distinction at the University of Sydney as Australia’s first Professor of Poetry and Poetics. I was particularly interested in his passion for religious poetry in English and his deep and searching expertise on T.S. Eliot, especially the Four Quartets. The sad circumstances of Barry’s retirement from the University of Sydney in 2015 after forty years of service at that institution are perhaps well known. These circumstances illustrate the illusion of so-called academic freedom in this country, which allows the digital hacking of a private correspondence to become the basis for a politically motivated vendetta against some of Barry’s probably misperceived attitudes. The fact that this situation was never brought to a fair hearing and was the direct cause of Barry’s enforced retirement sent shock waves through the academic community at the University of Sydney and more widely in this country.' (Introduction)