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
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
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
In 1879 Gerard Manley Hopkins returned to a very different Oxford than he remembered from his undergraduate years. The “rural keeping” that he delighted in had been replaced by the “graceless growth” of modern suburbs. Most troubling, he found that his “aspens dear” were “all felled,” leading to his heartbreaking repetition of the strokes in … More Sustainability in the Victorianist Classroom
Today is Christina Rossetti’s feast day! Surprised that the poet has a feast day? Me too! But I’m happy to have a day when I have an excuse to read Goblin Market and and listen to the hymns and carols that come from her poetry. Such a high poetic feast day also requires commiserating together … More The Feast Day of Christina Rossetti
