Heathcote William Garrod (1878-1960) was a British classical scholar and literary scholar. He was Fellow of Merton College, Oxford

Merton College, Oxford

Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...

 for over 60 years. He was Oxford Professor of Poetry

Oxford Professor of Poetry

The chair of Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford is an unusual academic appointment, now held for a term of five years, and chosen through an election open to all members of Convocation, namely, all graduates and current academics of the university; in 2010, on-line voting was allowed....

 from 1923 to 1928.

From 1929-1930 Garrod was the Charles Eliot Norton professor

Charles Eliot Norton Lectures

The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University was established in 1925 as an annual lectureship in "poetry in the broadest sense" and named for the university's former professor of fine arts. Distinguished creative figures and scholars in the arts, including painting,...

 at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

.

Though the remark is frequently attributed to others more famous, more reliable sources give him as the person who, when accosted by a woman during the First World War asking why he was not with the soldiers fighting to defend civilization, replied: 'Madam, I am the civilization they are fighting to defend'.

Works

• Statii
  Statius
  Publius Papinius Statius was a Roman poet of the 1st century CE . Besides his poetry in Latin, which include an epic poem, the Thebaid, a collection of occasional poetry, the Silvae, and the unfinished epic, the Achilleid, he is best known for his appearance as a major character in the Purgatory...
  
   Thebais et Achilleis (Oxford, 1906) editor (second edition in 1926, reprinted in 1951)
• Opvs epistolarvm Des Erasmi Roterdami (1906) editor with H. M. Allen
• The Religion of All Good Men: And Other Studies in Christian Ethics (1906)
• Manili Astronomicon Liber II (1911)
• The Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1912)
• Einhard's Life of Charlemagne (1915) editor with R. B. Mowat
• Wordsworth: Lectures and Essays (1923)
• Byron 1824-1924 (1924)
• Coleridge Poetry and Prose with Essays By Hazlitt, Jeffrey, De Quincey, Carlyle & Others (1925) editor
• Keats (1926)
• Merton Muniments (1928) with P. S. Allen
• The Poetry of Collins (1928) Warton Lecture
• The Profession of Poetry and other lectures (1929)
• Poetry and the Criticism of Life (1931)
• Ancient Painted Glass in Merton College Oxford (1931)
• Tolstoi's Theory of Art (1935) Taylorian Lecture
  Taylorian Lecture
  The Taylorian Lecture, sometimes referred to as the "Special Taylorian Lecture" or "Taylorian Special Lecture", is a prestigious annual lecture on Modern European Literature, delivered at the Taylor Institution in the University of Oxford since 1889....
  
  
• Opera Flacci, Q. Horati (1941) editor with Edward C. Wickham
• Epigrams (1946)
• List of the Writings of H. W. Garrod (1947)
• John Donne; Poetry and Prose with Izaac Walton's Life. Appreciations By Ben Jonson, Dryden, Coleridge and Others (1948)
• Genius Loci and other essays (1950)
• Poetical Works of John Keats (1956)
• Study of Good Letters (1963)