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 …
Nature’s other Minstrels
Bird song has long been associated with British poetry, especially in the Romantic period, 1780s to 1820s. This may explain why the nightingale became the most celebrated bird in English verse. The course will focus on poems by Coleridge, Wordsworth, … More details …
Daphne du Maurier
During this course we will study three novels by the Daphne du Maurier. Often under-rated because of her popular appeal we will look at the skill of her narrative style, consider her ability to write to a variety of sub-genres … More details …
Lorna Doone
This 1865 novel has never been out of print. We’ll discuss what makes it a compelling story; what it shows us about Victorian Britain and developments in novel-writing. Please read to the end of chapter 6, for discussion at the … More details …
Reading 1951: John Wyndham, Daphne du Maurier and Graham Greene
Discuss The Day of the Triffids, My Cousin Rachel, and The End of the Affair. We’ll look at characters, settings, motivations and common themes. Any unabridged copies are suitable. Please read chapters 1 – 8 of The Day of the … More details …
The other novels of Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins is probably best know as the writer of The Moonstone and The Woman in White. However, he wrote many other novels and this course will study No Name and Armadale. We will consider these novels in their wider … More details …
Great Art – Great Literature
How have some of the best minds responded to art? This course examines a series of great artworks—from Brueghel to French Impressionism—then analyses some of the literature written in response.
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 …
Trolloping along
We will focus on Trollope’s Dr Thorne and Framley Parsonage, continuing the Barchester Chronicles series. It is not necessary to have read the earlier books to enjoy this course.
More details ...First Penguins: A Revolution in Reading
What do The Unpleasantness at The Bellona Club, by Dorothy L. Sayers, Gone to Earth, by Mary Webb, and Carnival, by Compton Mackenzie have in common? They are numbers 5, 9 and 10 on Penguin’s list. We will discuss characters, … More details …
Americans in Paris
Paris has been a catalyst for some of America ’s finest thinkers and creators. From Thomas Jefferson to Gene Kelly, this course explores their reasons for going there and the work they produced. The main focus will be art (Sargent, … More details …
Landscapes in Literature
An exploration of British landscape writing through selected texts of poetry and prose, from 19th century industrial and post-industrial landscapes, to the ‘new nature writing’ of the 21st century.
More details ...North and South: Elizabeth Gaskell
Share your responses to this classic novel. At one time, it was classified only as a ‘condition of England’ novel. More recently the story of Margaret Hale, and her movements between the rural south and the newly industrialised north has … 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.
More details ...Female maladies, medical and literary culture in the long 19th century
We will look at how writers of fiction portrayed deviant and/or difficult women and how society, including the medical profession, punished, chastised or managed these transgressive characters. Texts will be Mary Wollstonecraft’s unfinished novel Maria, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow … More details …