Discussing four stories from The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1
Many of the Nineteenth Century writers we now consider classic novelists were regularly producing short fiction. We’ll discuss how these suit reading tastes today, as well as considering a little of the recent history of short fiction. The earliest of … More details …
Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate
Vikram Seth is the global bestselling author of A Suitable Boy and An Equal Music. His first novel is an unrivalled triumph of both imagination and craft: an eloquent, thrilling soap opera set in 1980s San Francisco, featuring a politicised … More details …
More Trolloping – Orley Farm
This stand-alone novel, Orley Farm, by prolific nineteenth-century novelist Anthony Trollope is a tale of family relationships, inheritance and suspected property fraud. It provides us with a window into Victorian society and the ideas that underpinned it.
More details ...More Chekhov Short Stories
Chekhov wrote and sold short stories and vignettes of Russian life from 1880 to 1903, the year before his death from tuberculosis aged forty-four. During those twenty-three years, while he was also studying and practicing medicine, he produced at least … More details …
Early Dickens – Sketches by Boz
Sketches by Boz were the first published sketches by Charles Dickens. This course will look at a range of these sketches over three weeks and consider what themes are raised, discuss them in the wider context of the Dickens canon and … More details …
North (1975) Seamus Heaney
“North”, published in 1975 is divided into two parts. The first contains poems which are more symbolic in nature, taking themes such as the myth of Hercules and Antaeus, the bog bodies of Northern Europe, the Vikings and other historical … More details …
Reading Three Post Modern Novels: Wide Sargasso Sea, Foe, Flaubert’s Parrot
Wide Sargasso Sea was written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel, Jane Eyre; J. M. Coetzee reinvents Daniel Defoe’s 1719 Robinson Crusoe adventure story, and Julian Barnes novel is an attempt by a fictional biographer to write about the French … More details …
Reading Paintings – The Dutch Golden Era
This day-school opens with a survey of the Dutch Golden Age in politics and art. We begin with the establishment of the Dutch Republic in 1588 and end with the Rampjaar (‘Terrible Year’) of 1672 when the French invaded and … More details …
Virgil’s “Aeneid” (Sarah Ruden verse translation)
In our reading and discussion of the “Aeneid”, we shall be looking at the mythology of the fall of Troy, the themes of fate and destiny, the importance of ‘pietas’ and ‘virtus’ in relation to the character of Aeneas. We … More details …
From Scarlet Pimpernel to Horatio Hornblower – reading four early twentieth century romance novels
What is it about the historical romance that has attracted readers and writers? Are they pure escapism? Perhaps we can find clues by looking at some of the twentieth century roots of the genre. We will discuss ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ … More details …
Be Still My Beating Heart: Unenviable Proposals in Fiction
This study day will look at marriage proposals across a range of nineteenth-century fiction. Whilst there will be a light-hearted consideration of the many unenviable proposals that appear in fiction from this period. We will also consider the more serious … More details …
Six Contemporary English Poets
On this three week course we will look at representative examples of the variety of poetry that is being written in England at present, and where possible listen to recordings of the poets reading their own work. These will include … More details …
Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Grey: Literature of the 1890s
The period known as the fin de siècle was a time of rapid change and progress but also a period that saw a huge amount of fear over cultural, social, political and ideological change. Both these texts explore the shifts … More details …
Laurie Lee: A Cotswold Countryman
Most of us have heard of Cider with Rosie, the first of Laurie Lee’s autobiographical novels about his early life in the lush beauty of the Gloucestershire countryside. Lee is rightly famous for this engaging work but his passion was … More details …
Discussing Chekhov: Three short stories from the greatest writer of short stories
We’ll be using three stories to think about why Chekhov has been revered by so many western short story writers for such a long period of time. How do descriptions of late nineteenth century Russia fit into the twenty-first century? … More details …