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GRACEFUL CLODS: SOIL IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY

Part of the Writing The Rural Seminar Series
February 28, 2019 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

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Details

Date:
February 28, 2019
Time:
12:00pm - 1:00pm
Cost:
Free
Event Category:

Venue

The Museum of English Rural Life
The Museum of English Rural Life, Redlands Road
Reading, Berkshire RG1 5EX United Kingdom
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A black and white archive photo of sheep in a field being watched over by a shepherd leaning on a fence, for the seminar series

We welcome back our popular collaboration with the Department of English Literature for a third exciting series, Writing the Rural. This year’s talks are chaired jointly by Dr Paddy Bullard and by our current Research Fellow, writer Suzy Joinson. Their guests include the usual inspiring mix of writers and literary thinkers, as well as folk musician Martin Simpson.

The seminars take place on selected Thursdays, 12-1pm at The MERL. Booking is recommended as places are limited. 

THURSDAY 28TH FEBRUARY

Graceful clods: soil in eighteenth-century poetry

Dr Tess Somervell who is giving a seminar at the MERLDr Tess Somervell, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, School of English, University of Leeds

In this lunchtime talk Dr Somervell will introduce us to one of the great lost genres of British poetry, the eighteenth-century English Georgic. Georgic poetry was a significant component in the cultural and social changes that underpinned the agricultural revolution. She will focus on three of the most influential examples of the genre, Cyder by John Phillips, The Seasons, by James Thomson, and The Task, by William Cowper.