By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘A Haunted House’, by Virginia Woolf, both is and is not a ghost story. In less than two pages of prose, Woolf explores, summons, and subverts the conventions of the ghost story, offering a modernist take on the genre. ‘A Haunted House’, which first appeared in Woolf’s 1921 short-story collection Monday or Tuesday, can be read here.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Richard Lovelace (1617-57) was a leading Cavalier poet, and an Englishman who supported, and fought for, King Charles I during the Civil War. ‘To Althea, from Prison’ is one of his most famous poems; it certainly contains his most famous lines. In this post we’re going to offer some notes towards an analysis of ‘To Althea, from Prison’ focusing on the poem’s context, language, and meaning.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Philip Larkin (1922-85) completed his poem ‘Here’ in October 1961, and it was included (as the opening poem) in his 1964 collection The Whitsun Weddings. The poem describes and, in its distinctively Larkinesque way, celebrates the city of Hull, where Larkin had been working since 1955 (and where he would live until his death in 1985).
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Tithonus’ is not as famous as some of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s other dramatic monologues – ‘Ulysses’ enjoys considerably more popularity – but it is worth analysing because it offers something different from much other poetry. As the poet-critic William Empson put it, ‘Tithonus’ is ‘a poem in favour of the human practice of dying’, because the poem exposes the horrific reality of what it would be like to live forever.