Results day
August 21, 2025
A-level results day in 2002 proved to be one of the turning points of my life. It’s now becoming an increasingly dominant part of my professional life. … More Results day
Tag: Andrew Marvell
Review: Rory Waterman, ‘Come Here to This Gate’
June 24, 2024
Rory Waterman’s fourth volume by Carcanet, Come Here to this Gate, is an unusual and resplendent three-part collection that saddens, amuses, and sticks rigidly in the mind. … More Review: Rory Waterman, ‘Come Here to This Gate’
Andrew Marvell at 400
March 31, 2021
The seventeenth-century poet, politician and prose satirist Andrew Marvell has been a large part of my life for the past 20 years. A short commemoration of that journey. … More Andrew Marvell at 400
A New Horatian Ode: Brexit and Civil War
July 11, 2019
Inspired by the new BBC documentary, Downfall of a King, a few connections between Brexit and the conflicts of the 1640s. … More A New Horatian Ode: Brexit and Civil War
Christopher Hill, Andrew Marvell, and the Dissenting Tradition
November 6, 2018
I owe much of my interest in the seventeenth century to the late historian, Christopher Hill (1912-2003). I went to see Justin Champion deliver an impassioned defence of Hill and his work at a memorial lecture in Newark. … More Christopher Hill, Andrew Marvell, and the Dissenting Tradition
The Politics of Envy
September 12, 2018
Why do we always seem to be drawn to what we don’t have? The stumbling block of how to pursue academic publications without fear of rejection. … More The Politics of Envy
Was Marvell a seventeenth-century ‘incel’?
June 6, 2018
The difficulties of dealing with involuntary celibacy, from desolation to misogyny, seem to haunt some of Andrew Marvell’s most famous lyric poems. … More Was Marvell a seventeenth-century ‘incel’?
Samuel Pepys and His Books
June 1, 2018
Review of Kate Loveman, Samuel Pepys & His Books: Reading, Newsgathering & Sociability, 1660-1703 (Oxford University Press, 2015). … More Samuel Pepys and His Books
Learning a new language
March 10, 2018
I was reminded this week how nerve-wracking it can be getting to grips with a master’s, and why I have my supervisor to thank for it. … More Learning a new language
Marvell, Dryden, and the Horatian Ode
February 16, 2017
There is no hard evidence that Andrew Marvell’s ‘Horatian Ode’ ever left his hands. Yet, it may have come to John Dryden’s attention. How is Dryden the privileged one? A brief study of hard and soft evidence. … More Marvell, Dryden, and the Horatian Ode
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