bibliography

Augustans and Romantics, 1689-1830 (1940)
The Emergence of Shakespeare's Tragedy (1950)
Poetry and Prose. With Essays by Johnson, Coleridge, Hazlitt (1949)

basic biography

Henry Victor Dyson "Hugo" Dyson, or H.V.D. Dyson, was born in 1896. We don't know much about his childhood, but he did serve in the Great War. He was outspoken often to the point of rudeness, but always said what he meant. You didn't need to worry about what Dyson was thinking or feeling at the time -- he let you know. This often lead to minor scuffles between himself and other Inklings members. Mostly they were shrugged off. The ill will between Dyson and Tolkien is often exaggerated. Yes they were in slight competition, having obtained fellowships at around the same time, and Tolkien did find Dyson's loudness a bit trying at times, but as far as one can tell it was not open hostility. They often walked about places together, and other members of the Inklings hung out with Dyson outside of meetings as well. Lewis visited bookshops with him and so forth. They all agreed meetings were much less noisy without Dyson. Tolkien once commented, "the Inklings meeting...was very enjoyable. Hugo was there: rather tired-looking, but reasonably noisy," ("Letters" 83).

He was a staunch Anglican, and devoted Christian, and Lewis commented that Dyson, "showed me... the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened...the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets...Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call "real things." Therefore it is true, not in the sense of being a "description" of God...but in the sense of being the way in which God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties" ("Letters to Arthur" 127). Dyson is, according to Lewis, "the immediate human causes of my conversion" ("Letters" 197). Dyson taught English at the University of Reading in the 1920s until his Merton College Fellowship from 1945-1963. He was best known for his lectures and constant talking. He died in 1975 at the age of 79.

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