I’ll be booking sessions in Ross House for this course, which has generated a lot of interest.  In it we’ll follow Dante on his epic explorations of the farthest stretches of the medieval cosmos and the innermost workings of the human psyche.  Sinners, saints and a representative sampling of all sorts in between are down for a visit and a chat, and even in translation Dante’s verse sweeps the reader along at an astonishingly brisk pace.  Wonders and horrors galore, in a master-class on medieval poetry, theology and philosophy.  If you haven’t already done so, you can register your interest (no commitment required at this point) via the “Contact Us” link on the MLS homepage.

Seamus Heaney’s poetry covers a huge ground.  With a keen eye and finely tuned voice, he composed poems of powerful local intensity that have reached a global audience.  His effortless wit and humor, his warmth, and his uncanny ways of holding the world to a moral standard at once generous and exacting have proven utterly unforgettable to any who have encountered them.  In six two-hour sessions we will read and discuss a representative sampling of Heaney’s poems from across his career.  A selection of these will be provided in the first session.

The Poetry of Seamus Heaney

Where:  Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane

When:  Wednesdays, 1pm to 3pm, 6 November to 11 December

Fee: $130

If you’re interested, let me know via the “Contact Us” link.

This twelve-week course, which will run from 31 October, will explore the great variety of different texts that can be found in the Bible and their tremendous impact on authors from the Middle Ages to the present day.

If you don’t already own one, you will need to acquire a Bible–any modern translation will do, though I would recommend one of the more classic versions:

King James Version

Revised (or New Revised) Standard Version

The (New) Jerusalem Bible

These are, however, just suggestions.  In addition, I will provide an anthology of the literary texts we will discuss.  There’s been a lot of interest in this course, so if you haven’t already expressed yours and would like to attend, do contact me so I can reserve a place for you.

Where:  Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane

When: Thursdays, 1pm – 3pm, starting 31 October and ending 23 January (12 weeks, including a break for Boxing Day)

Fee: $250

What Is Poetry?

When:  Six Wednesdays from 18 September to23 October

1.30pm till 3.30pm

Where: large meeting room, Fitzroy Public Library

Fee: $120

The kinds of prose writing that most of us are used to reading—from journalism to novels, travel writing and cookbooks, texts and tweets—are a very recent development in the history of how human beings have learned to use language.  Poetry is a far older more universal phenomenon that dates back to the earliest human cultures.  For millennia it has been both a demanding craft and a source of potentially endless enlightenment and delight.  In this course we will read and discuss a wide range of English-language poems, from medieval to modern, to see what we can discover about the nature of poetry itself–how it works, what it can achieve, and the many ways in which it can offer us both recreation and wisdom.

I will provide a course reader containing the poetry we will discuss in this course.

First Folio of Shakespeare’s Plays

The Opening of Beowulf

The Inklings:  J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams

When:  Six Saturdays from 7 September to 12 October

1.00pm till 3pm

Where: large meeting room, Fitzroy Public Library

Fee: $120

In this course we will read and discuss excerpts from the writings of these three most widely read members of the Inklings, a group of Oxford academics and their friends who met regularly in the forties and fifties to read their works to one another and discuss them convivially.  The Inklings were the first to hear drafts from Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Lewis’ The Narnia Chronicles, and the poetry, essays and novels of Charles Williams, a less well-known figure who still commands a loyal following (among whom I count myself!).  Individually and collectively, the Inklings embodied an extraordinary range of intellectual and literary tastes and styles, and they shared a profound urge to explore issues of faith and metaphysics with both imaginative flair and theological rigor.  The wide appeal of Tolkien’s and Lewis’ popular fictions speaks for itself, and Williams’ more esoteric novels and Arthurian poetry have won a smaller but devoted audience.

I will assemble a reader for this course, comprising short fiction, essays and excerpts from longer works by Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams, which I will make available as a PDF to enrolled students ahead of the first session.  I can also provide hard copy at no extra charge.

C.S. Lewis

J.R.R. Tolkien

Charles Williams

Let me know if you’d like to attend, via the “contact us” link on the MLS homepage.