In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reviews a 1970s dystopian novel in which sex has become the new religion The population of the world has reached 8 billion. Overpopulation and Malthusian fears that the world’s natural resources will run out are very real. Parents are […]
What do you get your beloved for your one-year anniversary? John Donne wrote this poem, ‘The Anniversary’, to his beloved. As well as being a fine love poem, ‘The Anniversary’ is also an example of metaphysical poetry, so it’s worth summarising the content of the poem. And the best way […]
Of all Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night is perhaps the most perfect: the most technically and structurally accomplished, the most unified in terms of its wordplay and themes and characters, and the most profound. Beneath all of the cross-dressing and mistaken identities, Twelfth Night probes some deep truths about the nature […]