Last year I completed my Ph.D., “Christina Rossetti’s Fractured Gothic”, at Birmingham City University. I teach a first-year Poetry module, a second-year module on gender and culture, and a third-year module on Renaissance poetry. I am very interested in art as well as literature, and am the editor of The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society.
Generally speaking, my interests are:
Nineteenth century literature, poetry generally, Gothic literature, Milton, Elizabethan literature and history, literature and history of the world wars, theatre, education - especially secondary and higher, politics/policy, art – particularly nineteenth and early twentieth century, feminism, classical music – especially British composers (eg Vaughan Williams, Elgar etc), writing, recorder music, ballet and ballroom dance, Russia, pre-war ceramics, vintage clothes, and – randomly – sewing and crochet. Also, I like to rant, ideally in the pub.
Armies in the Fire
THE LAMPS now glitter down the street;
Faintly sound the falling feet;
And the blue even slowly falls
About the garden trees and walls.
Now in the falling of the gloom
The red fire paints the empty room:
And warmly on the roof it looks,
And flickers on the backs of books.
Armies march by tower and spire
Of cities blazing, in the fire;—
Till as I gaze with staring eyes,
The armies fade, the lustre dies.
Then once again the glow returns;
Again the phantom city burns;
And down the red-hot valley, lo!
The phantom armies marching go!
Blinking embers, tell me true
Where are those armies marching to,
And what the burning city is
That crumbles in your furnaces!
Robert Louis Stevenson
Best Regards,
Dan, Romania