Now that my doctoral training is finished and I’ve settled down in sunny South Dakota in my new role in faculty development, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who’s been an important part of the journey. Let’s start with everyone who’s been a wonderful support, and then get to the airing of … More Acknowledgements and Anti-Acknowledgements
Did you know that there’s a Victorian conference on poetry, literature, and history that you can watch right now for free? … More Flightless Conferences Promote Sustainability and Equity
Fanny Howe is a wonderful poet, novelist, and essayist. You can learn more about her from the Poetry Foundation. I’ve been reading some of her insights into faith and poetry in her short interview “Footsteps Over Ground” and her longer work The Wedding Dress. I’m amazed by the way she articulates the meaning of and need for … More The Liturgical Wisdom of Fanny Howe
We’ve have another busy year! Our daughter is walking and talking and…scattering her toy dinosaurs all over the house… And since last summer, I’ve been working on my dissertation, looking at the ways Victorians relate to the medieval past through liturgy. Whether Anglicans, dissenters, or agnostics, they’re using tons of liturgical allusions. And I turned … More Year in Review – 2018
With Advent starting and the Christmas season following it, it’s time to think about all the overlap between literature and liturgy. Sometimes a liturgy will take central place in a novel, such as the baptism in Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles or the wedding at the end of any marriage plot. Many liturgies themselves are a collection … More A Literary Kalendar for December
Want to learn more about poetry and not sure where to start? Just beginning graduate school and trying to get your head around the state of the research? Or just want to get to know the people researching and writing about Victorian poetry? Then you need to check out the Victorian Poetry Caucus coming out … More The Victorian Poetry Caucus
Kalenderes enlumined been they That in this world been lighted with thy name – Chaucer’s “Priere a Nostre Dame” Chaucer can be hard to pin down. At many points, we can ask ourselves “Is he serious?” or “Is this all an elaborate parody?” At other, darker times we may question if he really was “evere … More Chaucer’s Almighty and al Merceable Queene
Today is the anniversary of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s death in 1889. The poet died of typhoid fever (or perhaps Crohn’s disease) while in Ireland. 129 years ago, the “blue-bleak ember” of Fr. Gerard’s life fell and broke and revealed an “immortal diamond,” and we’re still writing and thinking about him–and most importantly still reading his … More The Transitus of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Tomorrow will mark the 129th year after Gerard Manley Hopkins’s death. His final poem, “To R.B.” was written in the last few months of his life and sent to his friend, the Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges. Taking up Horace’s pregnancy metaphor of a poet holding a poem back for nine years, Hopkins’s final apology is a … More The “Immortal Song” of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Studying ecocriticism with Victorians … More Sustainability in the Victorianist Classroom
