EnglishReadings podcasts are now also available on iTunes.
Category Archives: English Readings
A personal memoir of a modern British poet, Ken Smith (1938-2013)
Extract from Mary Mitford’s Sketches of English Life and Character
This extract is from the sketch,“Hannah Bint”, included in Some Sketches of English Life and Character, by Mary R Mitford.
Mary Mitford (1787-1855) was a successful author and dramatist whose work is now, unfortunately, little known. She specialised in writing about English rural life.
More on Mary R Mitford – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Russell_Mitford
Image: “A Village by the Sea”, by Stanhope Forbes (one of the Newlyn School); as included in the above book.
Extract from classic WW2 literature – Dogfight over England
“Drummer Hodge” – a short podcast.
Four Victorian Thinkers In Three Minutes, Microlecture
The latest upload to my English Readings channel on YouTube:
Reading list for my Edwardian Lit students, 2nd semester
READING LIST FOR MICHAEL’S GROUPS, ENL1013M, 2018
These are the main texts we will be dealing with (not necessarily in this order) so please make sure you have obtained copies and read them in advance. A schedule of the seminars will be released shortly on Blackboard.
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Conan Doyle
King Solomon’s Mines, Rider Haggard
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The War of the Worlds, H G Wells
Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K Jerome
The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
Peter Pan, J M Barrie
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen (in the Dover Thrift edition)
Poems: “Convergence of the Twain” by Thomas Hardy; “Cargoes” by John Masefield
The following short podcasts are available on YouTube: “Dracula As The Jew”; “Peter Pan And The Mother Lode”; Three Men In A Boat: A Microlecture”; “An Air That Kills: Housman’s Blue Remembered Hills”; “Dowson’s Cynara: A Microlecture”. These are at English Readings: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYJz11iRqn9CJMh4Zr7DLlA
“Analogy” – a poem by Brian Higgins, read by Michael Blackburn
Brian Higgins (1930 – 1965) is now forgotten as a poet but published three collections of poetry during his lifetime. This poem, “Analogy” comes from his second, Notes While Travelling (Longmans, London, 1964).
His first collection, The Only Need, was published by Abeland-Schuman (New York – London – Toronto) in 1960, and the final one (posthumously), The Northern Fiddler, by Methuen (London) in 1966. His death was ascribed to a ”rare heart condition”.
More on Higgins available on Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Higgins_(poet)
The portrait of Higgins is by Patrick Swift and is used courtesy of Wikipedia.
“Nostalgia” (aka “The Iron Music”) by Ford Madox Ford, read by Michael Blackburn
Ford Madox Ford, 1873 – 1939.
Best known as the author of such novels as The Good Soldier and No More Parades, Ford was also an accomplished modernist poet. He enlisted with the Welch Regiment in 1915 at the age of 41, served at the front and was wounded. “Nostalgia” (with the alternative title, “The Iron Music”) is one of a number of poems that take their rise from his experiences of the Great War.
Image of Ford c/o The Ford Madox Ford Society (http://www.fordmadoxfordsociety.org).
The text is taken from Ford Madox Ford: Selected Poems, edited with an introduction by Max Saunders, published by Carcanet Press, 2003.
Second podcast on Tennyson’s “Ulysses”: its Dantean origin.
This is the second of my podcasts on Tennyson’s poem, “Ulysses”, this time looking at its origins in Dante.