weekly posts on literature, languages, and learning
Robert Seymour Bridges was a British poet and the Poet Laureate of the UK from 1913 to 1930. Originally a doctor, he had to abandon his medical practice due to poor health. He spent most of his life in rural Berkshire near Oxford, dedicated to writing and literary studies. Robert S. Bridges (1844–1930) The poem …
Continue reading "‘So sweet love seemed that April morn’ by Robert Bridges"
At the very beginning of this year’s Lenten season, we’re going to read a short poem by Christina Rossetti (1830–1894), the celebrated English poet and writer of devotional literature. Her two-part poem “Ash Wednesday” brings into focus the meaning of this important day in the church calendar. The poem is simple, but it's not exactly …
John Henry Newman was one of the intellectual giants of the Victorian era. Born in London in 1801, he led a long life filled with intellectual curiosity and deep concern with matters of faith. Originally an Anglican priest and theologian based in Oxford, he famously converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845, continuing his ministry as a …
Continue reading "Book review: “Loss and Gain” by John Henry Newman"
A while ago I posted a lengthy grammar article about the conditional sentences in English, and in this post we’ll read a poem by Rudyard Kipling that can be used to illustrate conditional clauses. It has some great vocabulary, too. (Not to mention lofty ideas!) Rudyard and John Kipling Titled “If—”, Kipling wrote this poem …
Last time we had a poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson here on the blog, it was his lovely short piece “The Owl”. In this post I’d like to present “Ring Out, Wild Bells”: it’s a classic New Year’s Eve poem, filled with good wishes and hopeful pleas. First published in 1850, it addresses everything from …
Continue reading "A poem for the New Year: “Ring Out, Wild Bells” by Lord Alfred Tennyson"
Alfred Tennyson was a celebrated 19th century English poet whose life and work largely coincided with the reign of Queen Victoria. He was in many ways the embodiment of the Victorian literary tastes and widely recognised as Britain’s leading poet of the time, not the least through being honoured with the title of the Poet …
Think of literary vampires, and everyone’s first association is bound to be Bram Stoker’s Dracula hailing from that dark, mystifying land of Transylvania. Enormously influential as it has been, Dracula had a notable antecedent in the form of an even more ground-breaking, yet lesser known, vampiric antagonist - Carmilla - created by the Irish novelist …
Continue reading "Queer in more ways than one: “Carmilla”, a Gothic literary classic"
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