When you sit down down to write, knowing where to start can be the biggest hurdle. Sitting at my dining table wearing my writing hat, am I really worthy of the cap? That’s pretty much how I feel, when with notepad and pen in hand, I attempt to write something coherent and, let’s be honest, […]
Women writers at the beginning of the 20th Century began an exploration into the mind and a self-awareness of the individual. These writers concerned themselves not only with time and history but with a sense of perception and an investigation into the inner dimensions of the human mind. According to Peter Barry, the period of […]
Both John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Horace McCoy’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? are set in America during the 1930’s and the plight of the poor and the working classes is represented as a response to the socio-economic problems of the time. Following the Wall Street Crash in 1929, America found itself amidst […]
During the 19th Century, the novel began its rise to show the struggle between ‘self’ and ‘other’. As the century progressed, authors of the time began to explore this binary divide to understand the ‘modern’. The investigation into human kind and to define and assert the self, began with a search for identity. In The […]
These are the books that are on my reading list for my final year at University. The children’s literature module looks the most exciting judging by this picture alone! The Dr. Seuss books caused much hilarity from my nine year old, who couldn’t quite believe his mum was going to be learning about The Cat […]
I thought I would share this post again, as it still remains a firm favourite. For the past few months, I have been playing around with different recipes to find my signature cake. Something I could be really good at and was easy to make and delicious at the same time. Sounds easy, I hear […]
Yesterday, I attended the National Writers’ Conference in the Bramall Music Building at the University of Birmingham held by Writing West Midlands. Having never been to a literary event before, I was somewhat apprehensive and wasn’t sure what to expect. At the registration desk, I had to choose which talks I would like to attend. […]
In the same way Victorian journalist Henry Mayhew reported on the life of the working classes in his articles published in the ‘London Labour and London Poor’, Dickens captures the social fabric of Victorian London at the time of his writing. Mayhew’s depictions of the London street markets evoke chaotic scenes and images that invade […]
Who is the man of the crowd in Poe’s tale, what is his critical and narrative function and what wider resonances does Poe’s figure have in relation to other texts you have studied? A new aesthetic experience for Victorian novel writers was the city. Literature began to respond to the challenges of life in the […]
Amy L Blair’s essay entitled ‘Misreading The House of Mirth’ is an investigation into the reading practises at the turn of the 20th Century. She discusses the beginnings of the ‘how to’ guides and literature becoming a life manual. Wai-Chee Dimock’s essay ‘Debasing Exchange: Edith Wharton’s The House Of Mirth’ argues that Wharton places the […]
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