Hello, we are staff and students in the English Literature and Creative Writing Department at Lancaster University. This channel began in lockdown with videos containing tips about studying both English Literature and Creative Writing at degree level. See our short films for tips for reading specific literary texts and literature more generally, about writing essays and creative works, as well as thoughts on heading to University, and study skills. We have continued to add videos of public lectures and seminars and hope you enjoy them!
(The opinions expressed here are personal and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Lancaster University. Responsibility for the accuracy of any of the information contained within video content on this channel belong to the individual.)
Gosh, I love this dude-he is a flaming hoot-his humor belies his rather stuffy,( Oxbridge(?) accent-I'm a financial analyst myself, but I would have enjoyed studying with this cat.-where ordinarily I wouldn't go within spitting distance of any Humanities faculty.
I went to George VI’s lying in state, queuing in silence in a blizzard from the opposite side of the Thames, for several hours. I too then was a protestant Christian, nominally. In the Hall it is true people walked past in silence, but in the 1950’s English people anyway were very private about their feelings, so one did not SEE an otward show of reverence. Unlike today even the long queue was silent. His early death had been a great shock, and he was much loved. I was 19 then. +
what always strikes me is the non recognised beauty of Irish songs ,a line from" She mived through the fair" where a person is described as "one had a sorrow ,that never was said " We do not know this sorrow yet it haunts us . terry eagleton is the best slainte from Belfast
I did try try to understand why, as only a fool excludes without enquiry, but like so much in the humanities today, it just felt like much ado about nothing.
I cannot believe any word of the prologue or tale was a cunning strategy to rail against women. It is the exact antithesis. No doubt, I'm a neophyte in this world, but all of the Canterbury Tales strikes me as a full-scale attack against all variety of false constructs of that age, the prior age, and the age to come. Chaucer was the archetype of Thomas Paine. The character of Alisoun is so potent, at least to my unlearned eyes, it is almost impossible to believe it is anywhere close to 650 years old.
Let us not forget the critical analysis of the late Professor Edward Said about this much talked Third-rate book wholly and solely based on slave labour's in the Caribbean.
Somebody should write a thesis and/or book about Terry's years at Lancaster University, all the way through from October 2008 to next year's Lancaster event for his 80th birthday celebrations. That thirteen years is quite a stint - longer than he'd been anywhere else except Oxford. So, aspirant PhD researchers, there's a ready-made topic for you!
thank you for this wonderful analysis and substantive thoughts. Mansfield Park is the last novel I've read from Miss Austen and despite the debate, I thoroughly enjoyed it more than I had anticipated. This is very mind-opening.
This is WASP worship. Where are discussions about the character rectorships, colonialism, masculinities, diapiric traditions, treatment of women, other themes? The focus really should be on the men, Caribbean culture. You spend way to much time on the bible and Elliot. I would not want to take your class if this is the the kind of tone you set. Sorry.
"Certain literary works go to work on language in ways that generate the illusion of sensuous specificity." It's not an illusion. Everything is specific, even particular iterations of generic terms.
the function of humour is grossly misunderstood ,i once read a piece about darkhumour in an emergency setting ,it was not directed at the patients but at the medical hierarchy .Also when i worked here in belfast ,new staff members were asked to ring up the mortuary and complain about the noise .My Co Sligo gave me a nice binary "sure if you didnt laugh youd cry "
We’re reading Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory right now in W371 right now. It’s been a tremendously wonderful help to understanding the chronology of critical practices. Great interview!
English people are obsessed with country houses because they are obsessed with class and being posh or NOT POSH or pretending they don't want to be posh (middle class)
Hilary Hines!! I remember you. You taught at Fircroft College, Birmingham in the early '90's. Respect to your undiminished enthusiasm for English literature, Professor
If this is an example of creative criticism, then it seems one of its defining features is talking (writing) around the text, leaving it out or displacing it entirely. I like some of Felski's takes on post-criticism, but this example of post-criticism seems to have no objective other than to evade or miss the text, and rather focus on the critic-without-a-text, the critic-as-pseudo-artist or lost literary wanderer.
If criticism can be stretched and seen as art and the critic hoping to be an artist, can we see art as originally a criticism of reality that now came to be seen as art just as we now come to see criticism as an art. In a way then reality is the true art, the object of criticism (conventional art) and criticism a means to make real what is fictional and add it to the true art that is reality.
Professor John Schad was one of my teachers when I wss doing MA at Loughborough University. A great man and a well-read person. John stay blessed 😊 Khurram Mirza.
