Ted Hughes: the early years
After a writing career which spanned over 40 years, Hughes’ literary heritage is not only vast, but covers most genres, including not only poetry, but translations of the works of other poets and prose writers, short stories for children and … More details …
Free verse or playing tennis without a net?
The great American poet Robert Frost said he would ‘as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down’, and yet much of modern poetry could be described as free verse, so how does it work and does … More details …
Bird Poems of the Romantic Poets
The bird is traditionally an image of the poetic voice and, as such, held much appeal for poets of the Romantic period. We shall read about the nightingale and the skylark, of course, but also the snipe and the owl, … More details …
Villanelles, Sonnets and Sestinas
Certain poetic forms have an enduring appeal for poets and readers alike. We shall read and discuss a variety of these, exploring the ways in which metre, rhyme and repetition contribute to a poem’s overall effect.
Landscapes in Literature 1
An exploration of British landscape writing through selected texts of poetry and prose, from the discovery of wild nature as a subject for exclamation and delight in the Romantic period, including passages from Defoe (1720s), the Wordsworths and Coleridge (early … More details …
Villanelles, Sonnets and Sestinas
Certain poetic forms have an enduring appeal for poets and readers alike. We shall read and discuss a variety of these, exploring the ways in which metre, rhyme and repetition contribute to a poem’s overall effect.
The Beekeeper’s Daughter: The poetry of Sylvia Plath
The Beekeeper’s Daughter: The poetry of Sylvia Plath Being a daughter, wife, mother, woman and poet are some of the themes explored by Plath in her poetry. This day school will look at some of the thoughts of this complex … More details …
Who is the “I” in this poem?
Who is the “I” in this poem? Explore the way poets use their own personal experience to create their work, introducing such concepts as ‘persona’ and ‘poetic voice’, but focusing primarily on the pleasure of reading poetry. What is autobiographical … More details …
“The Rhyming Peasant” John Clare
John Clare, the ‘rhyming peasant’: poetry of dwelling and displacement in the late Romantic period. We shall explore Clare’s unique voice in English poetry through a reading of select poems about nature and his local environment in the first half … More details …
‘A Man who used to notice such things’: the poetry of Thomas Hardy
Concentrating on Claire Tomalin’s selection (Poems of Thomas Hardy) we shall consider the themes into which Hardy’s poems are grouped and discuss individual poems in more detail.