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
Studying ecocriticism with Victorians … 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
Throughout his short life, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote occasional poems. Some were late apologies for missing a sister’s birthday. Others were designed to be presented to his Jesuit community, such as a playful description of a superior. And many were written to commemorate the liturgical season. During the Lent of 1866, he wrote the poem, … More Beginning Lent with Father Gerard’s “Nondum”
We’ve have quite a busy year! Our daughter, Eleanor, was born in March. I taught a class on fairy tales, and came away from it thinking Where the Wild Things Are is more genius than I ever realized (more on that in a later post). And I finished my comprehensive exams, preparing to teach in classes on … More Year in Review
How religious were the Victorians? If we focus only on the canonical poets, then maybe not so much. Alfred Tennyson finds himself staring at the paradox of a divinely-created nature that is “red in tooth and claw” and a faith that suggests we believe what “we cannot prove” (In Memoriam 56.15, Prologue line 4). Thomas Hardy … More Some Victorian Advent Reading
