(1962), C. P. Snow’s rectorial address at the University of St Andrews, was delivered at the university on 13 April 1962, when he took up the honorary post of Rector to which he had been elected the previous year, and was later published as a pamphlet. It is much less well-known and controversial than his 1959 Rede Lecture at Cambridge on

or his 1960 Godkin Lectures at Harvard on

and, unlike them, it has never been collected in book form. But it highlights a significant aspect of Snow’s thinking as a person, a public figure and a novelist.

Snow gave the lecture at a crucial time in his life and career. On 28 February 1962 the influential literary critic F. R. Leavis (1895-1978) had attacked Snow in his

1752 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "Magnanimity". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 February 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34887, accessed 26 November 2024.]