By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What was the first great epic poem in English literature? It’s sometimes claimed that Beowulf should have that title, so my subtitle for this week’s dispatch makes a somewhat contentious claim. It depends on how we view ‘English’, both as an identity and as a language.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Where does the word ‘leviathan’ come from, and what animal does it refer to? The origins of the word are to be found in the Old Testament, but we need to take a closer look at the Bible to uncover the true meaning of the word, and to discover why the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes took the word and used it as the title for his 1651 book Leviathan.
By Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’ is the standout track on the Smiths’ 1986 album The Queen Is Dead, for at least a couple of reasons. As well as being one of the most dearly loved songs the band ever recorded and a firm fans’ favourite, the track is arguably the only song on the whole album which lacks the playful wit which is otherwise found everywhere on the LP.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Unlike his friend and contemporary Sir Philip Sidney, Fulke Greville did not have a noble or heroic death. Sidney died aged 31 while on a military campaign in the Netherlands, and as he lay wounded, he reportedly let another more gravely injured soldier drink his water, saying that ‘thy necessity is yet greater than mine’. He died a hero, and when his body was returned to London he was interred in Old St Paul’s Cathedral.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
First published in the Pall Mall Gazette on 4 January 1895, ‘The Flying Man’ is not one of the best-known short stories of the British science-fiction author H. G. Wells (1866-1946), but the tale has some intriguing elements. It’s about a British soldier in Asia who escapes from a ledge (and extreme thirst) by improvising a parachute; this gives rise to legends of a ‘flying man’ among the local people.