Evelyn Waugh Night: ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’

In his lifetime Evelyn Waugh was ‘news’ and the wide range of his audience makes it more than difficult than with most ’serious’ authors to establish the context for the reception of his work.  He actively fostered an outrageous public image — at first as a form of self-advertisement and later to protect his privacy.  His public persona was enigmatic, and his artistic approach often baffling. Reviewers find it difficlt to avoid discussing what they took to be his ‘personality’ and its expression in his writings. -Martin Stannard

 

The MCR is pleased to bring you Evelyn Waugh Night, an annual celebration held in honour of one of the most distinguished near-graduates in my college, the brilliant novelist of Brideshead Revisited  (1945) and other, less-known and far better works.  Waugh was a conservative rebel, brilliant and versatile, lucid and always paradoxical that makes him a legend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The evening begins with a champagne toast to Evelyn and a resplendent dinner in Hall, with a menu featuring fare just as it would have been when he supped (compulsorily, and to his great complaint) in the same candlelit environs.