Week 5 – 'Writing the Border: Walter Scott and the Travel Narrative'

Céline Sabiron, University of Oxford

This week our speaker will be Dr Céline Sabiron, who is a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. She'll be presenting research from her forthcoming book (to be published by Provence University Press) focusing on Walter Scott's border narratives. These historico-geographical novels are structured around Scotland's vertebral column – ending in the south with the national border and composed in the north of the internal border marked by the Highland Boundary Fault, a sensitive area separating Lowlands and Highlands – serving as a narrative pivot around which the plots hinge. This monograph seeks to question the sense, understood as both meaning and direction, of cross-border travel in Scott's Scottish novels. Three types of travel – physical, symbolic, and eventually literary – will be analysed in turn to provide a complete reassessment of the relationship between Scott's novels and the travel literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the influence of Scott's work on the English and French literature from the second half of the 19th century.

All welcome!

*Blackwell's Wordsworth Event [See Below] Rescheduled*

Dear all Romanticists,

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we're very sorry to report that the William and Dorothy Wordsworth event to be held tonight with one of Oxford's very own Romanticists, Professor Lucy Newlyn [see below], has had to be rescheduled for February.  The specific date / time of the rescheduled event will be confirmed in due course.

In the meantime - if you're a keen reviewer as well as a keen Romanticist, we'd warmly encourage you to submit a comment on Professor Newlyn's "All in Each Other" at the Amazon web page, which can be found here: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/William-Dorothy-Wordsworth-each-other/dp/019969639X 

Event at Blackwell's Bookshop Tonight with one of Oxford's Romanticists - Professor Lucy Newlyn / William and Dorothy Wordsworth: 'All in Each Other'

Lucy Newlyn/ William and Dorothy Wordsworth: 

'All in Each Other' 

Thursday 7^th November at 7pm

William Wordsworth's creative collaboration with his 'beloved Sister' spanned nearly fifty years, from their first reunion in 1787 until her premature decline in 1835.  Rumours of incest have surrounded the siblings since the 19th century, but Lucy Newlyn sees their cohabitation as an expression of deep emotional need, arising from circumstances peculiar to their family history.  This is the first book to bring the full range of Dorothy's writings into the foreground alongside her brother's, and to give each sibling the same level of detailed attention.  Newlyn explores the symbiotic nature of their creative processes through close reading of journals, letters and poems - sometimes drawing on material that is in manuscript.  She uncovers detailed interminglings in their work, approaching these as evidence of their deep affinity.  Newlyn's book is deeply researched, drawing on a wide range of recent scholarship - not just in Romantic studies, but in psychology, literary theory, anthropology and life-writing.  Yet it is a personal book, written with passion by a scholar-poet and intended to be of some practical use and inspirational value to non-specialist readers.  Adopting a holistic approach to mental and spiritual health, human relationships, and the environment, Newlyn provides a timely reminder that creativity thrives best in a gift economy.

All tickets can be obtained by visiting the Customer Service Department at Blackwell's Bookshop, Broad Street, Oxford. Alternatively, contact Blackwell's on:

Tel: 01865 333 623 

Email: events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk

Tickets cost £3

Week 4 - "Wordsworth, Coleridge and the Untranslatable"

Alexander Freer (University of Cambridge)

We're welcoming second-year doctoral candidate Alexander Freer to Romantic Realignments this week, here to speak to us about Wordsworth, Coleridge and the notion of the "untranslatable":

Abstract

This paper analyses Ian Fairley’s recent discussion of the 'untranslatable’ in Coleridge’s critical writing and Wordsworth’s poetry (Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 34, no. 2).  I will give a brief overview of Fairley’s argument, offer some commentary and criticism, and then suggest some possible expansion and modification to the concept, with specific reference to ‘The Blind Highland Boy’ and a passage from The Prelude.  Knowledge of Fairley’s paper will not be necessary, but I supply the reference in advance so you are not compelled to rely on my paraphrase.

All are very welcome to attend as ever; please do come along to what promises to be another fascinating talk.

Week 3 - " 'Behindhand With Their Countrymen': The Literary Culture of Eighteenth-Century Exeter"

Dr Joseph Crawford (University of Exeter)

Exeter - as described by Daniel Defoe in the early eighteenth-century: "large, rich, beautiful, populous and...once very strong".

Joseph Coles, "A true plan of the city of Excester Anno Domini MDCCIX" (1709)

This week, we'd like to welcome Dr Joseph Crawford from the University of Exeter, here to speak to us about his current research on the city's eighteenth-century literary culture:

Abstract

In the early eighteenth century, the south-west of England was still a remote and little-visited area. Exeter, which in 1700 was still one of the largest and richest cities in England, served as the regional capital, separated from London by a hundred and fifty miles of famously terrible West Country roads which took four days to traverse by coach. Throughout the century, the most gifted writers born in the region - John Gay, Hannah Cowley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge - headed to London to seek their fortunes; but the printing and book-selling trades flourished in Exeter, and by the 1780s the city could boast a well-established local literary culture, with Devonshire doctors, clergymen, officers, Dissenters, and in one case even an Exmoor wool-comber coming to Exeter to have their writings printed and sold. In this seminar, I shall map out the development of this local literary culture, and discuss some of the ways in which it both conformed with and deviated from the more familiar national narratives regarding the development of English literature during the eighteenth century.

As ever, all are welcome to attend both the seminar and the wine reception afterwards; we hope to see many of you on Thursday!

*Week 2 - Additional Romantic Realignments Seminar*

Professor David Bromwich (Yale University) - 'Romanticism, Justice, and the Idea of the Nation'

Wednesday 23 October, 5:15pm, Seminar Room A, St Cross Building

We're delighted to welcome Professor David Bromwich from Yale University this week, who has very kindly agreed to speak at Romantic Realignments while he is here in Oxford giving the Clarendon Lectures.

Ahead of Wednesday's seminar, David has provided a short list of readings for those who would like to consider some - or all - of the main texts we'll be focusing on during the session:

- Richard Price, Discourse on the Love of our Country

- William Hazlitt, On Patriotism

- William Wordsworth, 'I grieved for Buonaparte'; 'To Toussaint L'Ouverture'; 'When I have borne in memory'; 'To Thomas Clarkson'

- Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address

This promises to be a great opportunity for informal discussion, questions and thoughts to thrive; all are warmly encouraged to attend.  Hope to see lots of you then! 

Michaelmas 2013 Termcard

Romantic Realignments

Every Thursday at 5.15, English Faculty Building, 
Seminar Room A.

*Extra seminar on Wednesday of Week 2.*

Week 1, 17 October: 

Daniel Cook, University of Dundee. 

Wordsworth's Chatterton.

*Week 2, 23 October:

David Bromwich, Yale University. 

Romanticism, Justice, and the Idea of the Nation.

                                    

Week 2, 24 October:

Octavia Cox, University of Oxford.

Pope, Cowper, and the Epic.

Week 3, 31 October:

Joseph Crawford, University of Exeter.

'Behindhand With Their Countrymen': The Literary Culture of 18th Century Exeter.

Week 4, 7 November: 

Alexander Freer, University of Cambridge.

Wordsworth, Coleridge and the Untranslatable.

Week 5, 14 November:

Céline Sabiron, University of Oxford.

Writing the Border: Walter Scott and the Travel Narrative.

Week 6, 21 November:

Paul Whickman, University of Nottingham.

The Promethean Conqueror, the Galilean Serpent and the Jacobin Jesus: Shelley's Interpretation(s) of Jesus Christ.

Week 7, 28 November:

Murdo Macdonald, University of Dundee.

The Significance of James Macpherson's Ossian for the Art of J. M. W. Turner.

Week 8, 5 December:

Rebecca Shuttleworth, University of Leicester.

Rationality, Religion, and Female Dissent: Elizabeth Heyrick (1769–1831).