It turns out 12th-century British scholars (monks, really, we’re mainly talking monks, here) had absolutely no problem borrowing “long passages” from whatever manuscripts they could get their hands on, and would freely plagiarize the writings of continental scholars. Of course, plagiarism then... Continue reading >> [ Source: Literrary Hub | 2021-05-11 14:10:25 UTC ]
When compared with the sonnet, ballad, or even the villanelle, the pantoum verse form could hardly be called ‘popular’, and examples of pantoums in English literature are not exactly plentiful. Nonetheless, there are some fine instances of the pantoum – a distinctive and strict form which has... Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2021-03-25 15:00:19 UTC ]
New issue, dedicated to work by current and former prisoners, provokes uproar after it emerges one poet has served time for child pornography offencesThe US’s prestigious Poetry magazine has doubled down on its decision to publish a poem by a convicted sex offender as part of a special edition... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Guardian | 2021-02-03 16:08:52 UTC ]
My assignment was to offer a survey course on the history of English literature in northeast China. I was paired with a young American teacher sponsored by the United Nations who was to teach phonetics and oral expression. We taught six days a week, and every Wednesday afternoon our students... Continue reading >> [ Source: Literrary Hub | 2021-01-15 09:49:40 UTC ]
Lit in Colour, the publisher’s partnership with the Runnymede Trust, hopes to redress imbalances in English literature coursesThe book publisher Penguin Random House has teamed up with the thinktank the Runnymede Trust to boost diversity in reading lists in schools.The partnership – Lit in... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Guardian | 2020-10-24 16:11:09 UTC ]
Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle English literature has a rich tradition of comic writing. From Chaucer’s ‘Miller’s Tale’ to Shakespeare’s Falstaff to the early comic novels of Smollett, Sterne, Fielding, and Swift, there are plenty of laughs to be had from the pages of the literary greats. But what... Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2020-10-08 14:00:57 UTC ]
BORN AND RAISED in Montenegro, Olja Knežević studied English literature at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, before completing her MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London, in 2008. Now living in Croatia, she is one of those effortlessly international authors whose... Continue reading >> [ Source: Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-02 12:30:19 UTC ]
Interviews Randy Ribay was born in the Philippines and raised in the Midwest. He’s the author of After the Shot Drops and An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes. His latest book, Patron Saints of Nothing, is a powerful coming-of-age story about... Continue reading >> [ Source: World Literature Today | 2020-09-29 13:14:12 UTC ]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys the comic verse by one of the most ‘miserable’ poets in English literature ‘The Crocodile or, Public Decency’ is not one of the best-known poems of A. E. Housman (1859-1936), the classical scholar and poet who failed his […] Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2020-09-18 14:00:40 UTC ]
Veteran biographer A.N. Wilson takes on one of the most popular, prolific and puzzling writers in English literature in "The Mystery of Charles Dickens." Continue reading >> [ Source: Los Angeles Times | 2020-08-06 14:00:54 UTC ]
After finding an anthology of English literature in the rubble of the Islamic University of Gaza during the 2014 Israeli bombing, Mosab Abu Toha had a dream: founding an English language library in one of the most confined, crowded, and isolated places in the world. According to the “We Are Not... Continue reading >> [ Source: Literrary Hub | 2020-07-22 08:47:29 UTC ]
Traditionally, a ballad was a song that was designed to be danced to, as the etymology of the word, Provençal balada meaning ‘dance, song to dance to’, ultimately from late Latin ballare. The great British ballads – and we say ‘British’ because many of them were Scottish rather than English... Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2020-06-14 14:00:45 UTC ]
How many times have you heard someone say, ‘I don’t read poetry. I just don’t get it.’ Or perhaps, ‘Why can’t poets just come out and say what they want to say? Why say something in such a way?’ For many people, poetry is ‘difficult’. But whilst it’s true that […] The post 10 of the Most... Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2020-05-30 14:00:36 UTC ]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle examines a famous phrase derived from Shakespeare The old line about Hamlet, that it’s ‘too full of quotations’, wittily sums up the play’s influence on not just English literature but on the everyday language we use. Many of us... Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2020-05-29 14:00:47 UTC ]
Guest Blogger: Prof Katy Shaw, University of Northumbria, Vice-Chair of BACLS – the British Association of Literary Studies – and executive committee member of University English, the national subject association. In recent years there has been a rapid rise in the teaching of English Literature... Continue reading >> [ Source: British Council global | 2020-05-18 09:30:54 UTC ]
Jeremy Trafford, who has died aged 85 after contracting Covid-19, was a publisher, teacher and writer. I met him in the late 1970s, while supply teaching at the London Oratory school, in west London, where he taught English literature in the sixth form. He was a brilliant teacher, who inspired... Continue reading >> [ Source: The Guardian | 2020-05-05 11:07:04 UTC ]
When we think of poems, these days most people probably automatically think of lyric poems: usually quite short poems which describe the poet’s (or an imagined speaker’s) thoughts and feelings. But from the epic poems of Homer to the Border Ballads of the Middle Ages to notable contemporary... Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2020-04-29 14:00:40 UTC ]
Literary criticism (or even ‘literary theory’) goes back as far as ancient Greece, and Aristotle’s Poetics. But the rise of English Literature as a university subject, at the beginning of the twentieth century, led to literary criticism focusing on English literature – everything from... Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2020-04-15 14:00:07 UTC ]
The sestina form is thought to have been created by Provencal troubadours – and possibly by one specific troubadour, Arnaut Daniel – in around 1200. However, it didn’t arrive in English literature until the late 1570s, when both Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, poets at the court of Queen... Continue reading >> [ Source: Interesting Literature | 2020-03-04 15:00:47 UTC ]
Below is the text of the 2020 Clark Lecture in English Literature instituted by Trinity College, Cambridge. * Thank you for inviting me to deliver this, the Clark Lecture, now in its 152nd year. When I received the invitation, I scrolled down the list of previous speakers, the many “Sirs” and... Continue reading >> [ Source: Literrary Hub | 2020-02-12 09:49:50 UTC ]