G. Wilson Knight

George Richard Wilson Knight (1897–1985) was an English literary critic and academic, known particularly for his interpretation of mythic content in literature, and "The Wheel of Fire", a collection of essays on Shakespeare's plays. He was also an actor and theatrical director, and considered an outstanding lecturer.
Life.
He was educated at Dean Close School, Dulwich College and, after serving as a dispatch rider in World War I in Iraq, India and Persia, St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read English. He graduated with second-class honours. After Oxford, he went into teaching. From 1923 to 1931 he taught at Hawtreys, Westgate-on-Sea and at Dean Close School, Cheltenham. His first academic post was at Trinity College, Toronto in 1931. He taught at Stowe School from 1941 to 1946. In 1946 he became a Reader in English Literature at the University of Leeds. He remained at Leeds as a Professor of English Literature from 1956 until his retirement in 1962.
At Toronto he produced and acted in the main Shakespearian tragedies at Hart House Theatre. Among his other productions are "Hamlet" at the Rudolf Steiner Theatre, London in 1935; "This Sceptred Isle" at the Westminster Theatre London in 1941; and at Leeds the "Agamemnon" of Aeschylus in 1946; Racine's "Athalie" in 1947; and "Timon of Athens" in 1948.
The classical scholar William Francis Jackson Knight (1895–1964), of whom he wrote a biography, was his brother.
Knight was a believer in spiritualism and was a vice-president for the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain.