An Introduction to Katherine Mansfield: Three short stories and background
This is a chance to look more closely at three well-known stories by an author who has had a significant impact on the shaping of the British short story. We’ll discuss each of them in turn, as well as thinking … More details …
Fierce Tears: A Day with Dylan Thomas
Original, intuitive and imaginative, Dylan Thomas brought his obsession with words and imagery into all his work: his poetry, stories, plays and radio broadcasts. But he also fostered a scandalous reputation as a hard-living, drunken, doomed poet who compromised his … More details …
Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and the Fin de Siècle
This course will unfortunately not be running on the date advertised. It is being postponed to a later date, which will be confirmed in due course. Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula provides a fascinating look at late nineteenth-century concerns. This … More details …
Selected novels of Thomas Hardy
This six week course will look at two novels by Thomas Hardy. Starting with The Mayor of Casterbridge (1866) we will consider concepts including ideas of tradition and modernity, time and history, the urban and the rural and ideas of … More details …
Modern Scottish Poetry
In this course we will explore the range of locations and contexts that have inspired the rich tradition of poetry in Scotland. From the islands of Orkney to urban Edinburgh and Glasgow, both male and female poets from very diverse … More details …
The Virgin and The Gypsy, Vile Bodies &, Mapp & Lucia – Portraits of the nineteen twenties?
Do these novels by DH Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh and EF Benson seem an eclectic selection? They’re three titles you might have bought in the years 1930 and 1931. Are they still relevant today? What kind of reader would you be? … More details …
Ann Radcliffe to Jane Austen – Female Gothic and Literary Homage
This six week course will provide the opportunity of bringing together two novels that are connected in the minds of many readers. Jane Austen’s heroine, Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, is very fond of reading gothic novels and one novel … More details …
Poems for Christmas
Poets have approached the theme of Christmas from so many different perspectives, reflecting a wide variety of beliefs. We will read poems about the Annunciation from the Middle Ages, and the birth of Christ, from poets as diverse as Thomas … More details …
Seamus Heaney: poet of place
This course is fully booked. Please contact us if you would like to be on the waiting list for any cancellations. Throughout his life, Seamus Heaney derived poetic inspiration from various quarters. However, many of his poems are rooted … More details …
Reading Dr Zhivago – seeing history through a fictional world?
We will be discussing the unabridged version of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. There are several translations. The three main ones are: Max Hayward and Manya Harari; Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, and the most recent, by Nicolas Pasternak Slater. … More details …
It’s a sensation!
Sensation fiction was an instant commercial success and took the literary world by storm in the 1860s. With scandalous protagonists and thrilling plots, sensation fiction captured the imagination of readers and outraged many critics. We will consider Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s … More details …
‘Answering Back’
Contemporary poets were invited to select a poem from our literary heritage and respond to it in any way they wished. “Answering Back” is the resulting anthology. In this day school, we shall be discussing a selection from the anthology, … More details …
Shakespeare and History: the real Wars of the Roses
Shakespeare’s earliest plays deal with the most turbulent period in English history, from the loss of France through to the Battle of Bosworth. Along the way he addresses the burning of Joan of Arc, the murder of a king, and … More details …
‘Life after Life’ by Kate Atkinson – the shaping of history in fictional worlds
This was Kate Atkinson’s ninth novel. A tricky narrative, playing games with story and reader. Is it a family saga? Is it a historical novel? A war novel? Do we need to categorise a work of fiction? As well as … More details …
‘Moon Tiger’ by Penelope Lively – the shaping of history in fictional worlds
Penelope Lively’s seventh novel was published in 1987. Ostensibly a novel about one woman’s extraordinary life, the story is complex, playing with time and view-points. It raises questions about history that provide us with a starting point for exploring our … More details …