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Britain’s pioneer filmmaker, born 150 years ago in North London, vividly portrayed the variety of life in ‘the imperial metropolis’ at the end of the 19th century, conscious of its historic appeal but also emphasising the modernity of which he was a part.
Using contemporary print and theatre, this lecture will discuss how England and Englishness was defined, even as the boundaries between the home and the world became increasingly diffuse.
London was crucially dependent on continental Europe for its economic resilience in the mid-sixteenth century, and Sir Thomas Gresham’s fortune piggy-backed off the special relationship with Antwerp.
Jonathan Bate will follow in the footsteps of the 18th-century inventors of the ‘picturesque’ and show how Wordsworth shaped the vision of his native region, leading to the foundation of the National Trust and the idea of a National Park.
In the third of his lectures on the rhetoric of Romanticism, Jonathan Bate will explore how they did so, with particular emphasis on the role of children in the poetry of Blake and Wordsworth.
Leading actor and Shakespeare scholar Michael Pennington discusses the direct effect on the dramatist's writing of the theatres he wrote for, so different from ours.
At a time when religions language is meaningless or feels stale for many, we can rediscover its freshness and force in the works of novelists and poets. Lord Harries will be in conversation with Alec Ryrie, the new Gresham Professor of Divinity.