Editing John Masefield (section)

===Encouraging the speaking of verse===

In 1921 Masefield gave the British Academy's Shakespeare Lecture<ref>{{cite web|title=Shakespeare Lectures|website=The British Academy|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/lectures/listings/shakespeare-lectures/}}</ref> and received an honorary doctorate of literature from the University of Oxford. In 1923 he organised Oxford Recitations, an annual contest whose purpose was "to discover good speakers of verse and to encourage 'the beautiful speaking of poetry'". Given the numbers of contest applicants, the event's promotion of natural speech in poetical recitations, and the number of people learning how to listen to poetry, Oxford Recitations was generally deemed a success. 

Masefield was similarly a founding member of the [[Scottish Association for the Speaking of Verse]] in 1924. He later came to question whether the Oxford events should continue as a contest, considering that they might better be run as a festival. However, in 1929, after he broke with the competitive element, Oxford Recitations came to an end. The Scottish Association for the Speaking of Verse, on the other hand, continued to develop through the influence of associated figures such as [[Marion Angus]] and [[Hugh MacDiarmid]] and exists today as the [[Poetry Association of Scotland]].