In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle analyses a minor classic of Anglo-Saxon poetry ‘The Dream of the Rood’ is one of the gems of Anglo-Saxon poetry. ‘Rood’ is an Old English word for ‘Cross’, and poem tells of a pious man’s encounter with a talking […]
Amy Clampitt’s poetry, like the poetry of earlier twentieth-century poets such as the modernist H. D., is nature poetry, often with an oceanic setting. ‘The Cormorant in Its Element’ is a great way in if you haven’t read Clampitt’s work before: it’s a sonnet, albeit a technically innovative and interesting […]
A commentary on Hans Christian Andersen’s famous story Published in 1836 in Danish, ‘Thumbelina’ or ‘Tommelise’ is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most popular fairy stories. Before he became famous throughout Europe and went to stay (and outstay his welcome) at Dickens’s house, Andersen was busy writing some of the […]