Last summer, I enjoyed the rare fortune of a primary school reunion, fifteen years after leaving. It is with sorrow and tragedy that this memory is graced here, as we come to terms with the tragic passing of one of our old classmates. … More Primary School: In Happiness and Sorrow
There are two sides to privacy: the bright side and the dark side. It is often politics which brings these to the fore. I was pleased to stumble across an anecdote about Andrew Marvell from the mid-eighteenth century that celebrates (as well we might today) the value of an honest politician. … More An MP Turning Down a Secret Bribe? Bipolar Privacy
It is a great shame that it is so difficult to make personal experience count in professional or academic writing. The first time I attempted genuine research was looking at Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray through the lens of dysmorphophobia, or body dysmorphic disorder. Of course, it wasn’t random reading of somatoform disorder textbooks that brought this match to my attention, but personal experience. … More A Green Thought: Private Minds
Hypocrisy often challenges us because it is flagrantly public. So what of Andrew Marvell’s satire on Tom May, who switched his allegiances to Parliament? … More Public Hypocrites and Private Anger: Tom May’s Death
Andrew Marvell’s ‘Horatian Ode’ provides a fascinating story in the aftermath of one of the most ‘climacteric’ episodes in English history. What if it was a private poem, and not written for circulation? … More Measuring Privacy: An Horatian Ode
Today I am presenting ‘Marvell in Manuscript and Print, 1649-1665’ at the English Postgraduate Forum in Leicester. Thoughts here on storytelling and expanding frontiers. … More Marvell in Manuscript and Print
This week marked the start of university number five: Leicester. … More The Fifth Element: Leicester
Both professionally and personally, privacy has been a daunting and fascinating topic over the past two weeks. A paper entitled ‘Denying Authorship: Marvell, Maniban and the Quest for Privacy’ was given in Geneva, followed by ‘Marvell in Manuscript and Print: Public and Private Experiences, 1649-1660’ at the University of Hull. … More Presenting Privacy: Marvell and London
Generally positive thoughts on the 2009 film adaption of Hamlet starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. … More “A Mirror Up To Nature”: Hamlet (2009)
J.W. Saunders’ study ‘The Stigma of Print’ (1951) touched an important nerve on the subject of publication. Despite claims that this stance had became ‘unfashionable’ by the mid-seventeenth century, few demonstrate such a ‘stigma’ more than Andrew Marvell. … More Marvell’s Stigma of Print
Writing Privacy 