The English Miscellany

When s tudent reader s s truggle with poetry, it' s often the relation s hip between s ound and s en s e that pre s ent s a high degree of difficulty. It' s very ea s y to be overcome by pitter-patter rhythm s and arcane name s for metrical technique s and poetic form s . But picking s ound pattern s may help to open up a variety of interpretation s . Thi s mean s s hifting from the identification of a local effect to the elaboration of more complex and nuanced s emantic po ss ibilitie s . The fir s t s onic ta s k for the critical reader involve s the s potting of s imilar s ound s s uch a s alliteration. A higher level of creative reading require s s en s itivity in order to link the s e s ound clu s ter s to the poem' s que s tion s , and it s an s wer s . A great poem hold s together, in tight compre ss ion, the different element s of form and technique, tone s and s tyle, form and content. Critical writing - the expo s ition and appre

The publication of a new edition of Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy (1904) presents a timely opportunity to explore a classic expression of the theory and practice of tragic drama. This is also an opportunity for new readers to encounter a distinctive appreciation of Shakespeare’s work in the context of more recent literary and cultural theories. In the process, the obstacles to a clear understanding of what Bradley thought are explored, and we seek to explain why many critics were often hostile to his writings on Shakespeare. We then proceed to an interrogation of Bradley’s philosophy of tragedy in the context the wider project of the development of English Studies as an educational discipline since the end of the nineteenth century. This frame of analysis will also be informed by recent post-colonial theories which will be positioned within the context of literary study understood as a distinctive project of enlightened humane education. [...] One of the predicamen

Quintilian, a highly esteemed Latin rhetorician, argues that composition involves learning a skill. He compares composition with the craft of the musician and with the skills of the sportsman. In his larger project, writing is linked with civic participation, with the arts of cultivation, and with the progress from the natural savage to a state of civilization. Writing should aim to flow harmoniously. Quintilian's Institutes of the Orator , Book 9 (trans. charles Rollin, 1774), 143-146. I well know, that there are some, who will not allow of any care in composition, contending that our words as they flow by chance, how uncouth soever they may sound, are not only more natural, but likewise more manly. If what first sprung from nature, indebted for nothing to care and industry, be only what they deem natural, I allow that the art of oratory in this respect has no pretensions to that quality.  For it is certain that the first men did not speak according to the

Today I am sharing the FURTHER READING list published in my book The Art of Connection: the Social Life of Sentences (Quibble Academic 2013): Amidon, Arlene. "Children's understanding of sentences with contingent relations: Why are temporal and conditional connectives so difficult?" Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 22.3 (1976): 423-437. Astington, Janet Wilde, Janette Pelletier, and Bruce Homer. "Theory of mind and epistemological development: The relation between children's second-order false-belief understanding and their ability to reason about evidence." New Ideas in Psychology 20.2 (2002): 131-144. Bakewell, Sarah. How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer . Vintage, 2011. Baker, Linda. "Comprehension monitoring: Identifying and coping with text confusions." Journal of Literacy Research 11.4 (1979): 365-374. Bates, Elisabeth, Philip S. Dale, and Donna Thal. &quo

Use the words in bold to fill in the gaps: 1. They were _________ delighted with the concert; at the end of the evening they applauded___________. 2. Sinners do not listen to the ___________ of preachers. 3. I am not _________ to drinking brandy in _________weather conditions. 4. Tourists are not __________ to walk on the lawn in the quadrangle. 5. I _________ you to refrain from ringing the alarm bell. 6. How will you   _______ a change in his behaviour? 7. I am pleased to _________ your confessions, _________ the one concerning murder. Accept         Advice                  Allowed       Advise        All together Averse        Altogether             Effect                     Adverse       Except 8. The chairman_________ the rowdy members of the committee. 9. I would like to___________ your opinion on the nomination of a new president. Have you had time to __________the quality of the applications submitted? 10. The pain