Gresham College provides outstanding educational talks and videos for the public free of charge. There are over 2,500 videos available on our website. Your support will help us to encourage people's love of learning for many years to come.
In the line, 'The Western wave was aflame', the 'Western wave' refers to the sea. But is it this simple? What do forms of substitution, synecdoche for example, lend to this magnificent and shadowy poem?
Can a scientific theory ever be confirmed? Must a scientific theory be falsifiable? Theories such as that of the multiverse and string theory will be considered.
'When well-appareled April on the heel / Of limping winter treads'. A calendar month cannot dress, nor can a season walk. This lecture will explore the magic of personification in Shakespeare's poetry.
This lecture will explain why Scott’s romanticised representations of Scotland were such a hit, and how his enduring legacy has helped or hindered Scotland as it seeks to define its place in Britain today.
In the first three minutes after the beginning of the universe, all of the stuff that we and the Earth are made of were created and the universe attained its huge size, homogeneity and isotropy.
Amongst all his astronomical allusions, Shakespeare demonstrates a deep knowledge of the night sky and its movements, including the new Copernican world-view. What can we learn of Elizabethan astronomy and Shakespeare's knowledge of it from the plays?
Dickens' use of exaggeration is key to his style. But its use has myriad effects from making a character's disposition unmissable, to adding whimsy and humour.
A retelling of one of the most staggering scientific discoveries of modern times: that the universe is expanding, and that proof for it can be found in the discovery of the recession of the galaxies.