Monthly Archives: July 2012

“He speaks like a drunken man”

The title of this entry comes from Oscar Wilde’s Salome. It is a line spoken by Herodias directed at Iokanaan, or John the Baptist. It is an important line, for it captures the hysteric, maddening quality of utterance in the … Continue reading

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Radiant Days

Books are astonishing things. I presented a paper on Oscar Wilde at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts back in March, focusing on fantasy and performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being … Continue reading

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Why I teach and study Victorian literature

My students think they know Victorian literature. They have impressions of it as dull, as overly concerned with decorum, as fantasias of the upper-classes in elegantly appointed drawing rooms drinking tea and eating cucumber sandwiches. Few of my students who … Continue reading

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Tintern Abbey

I mentioned Wordsworth a fair bit in one of my recent entries. The major touchstone we kept coming back to in the 19th-century survey class I taught last semester was “Tintern Abbey.” More than any of his other poetic work, … Continue reading

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“Luminous as an autumn sunset”

I’ve been steadily making my way through my dissertation and I hope to have it in draft by the end of the summer. I’ve got over half of my chapters in approved final form (or as final as they can … Continue reading

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Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth

I am an amateur gardener, and by amateur I mean novice. And by novice I mean newbie, and by newbie I mean, well, you get the point. I’ve recently begun working at the Temple Terrace Community Garden and it has … Continue reading

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