Charles I : unhero of royalist poetry

During the English Civil War, Charles I appeared as a character in Royalist poetry, both directly and allegorically. These depictions drew on ancient Roman epic poems, particularly Lucan’s De Bello Civili, in their treatment of the subject matter of civil war and Charles as an epic hero. Though the authors of these poems supported Charles, their depictions of him and his reign reveal anxiety about his weakness as a ruler. In comparison to the cults of personality surrounding his predecessors and the heroes of De Bello Civili, his cult appears bland and forced. The lack of enthusiasm surrounding Charles I may help to explain his downfall at the hands of his Parliamentarian opponents.  

Poéticas da visualidade em João Cabral de Melo Neto e Joan Miró: a poesia como crítica de arte

A tese focaliza alguns dos principais poemas de João Cabral de Melo Neto desenvolvidos como crítica poética. O mote da investigação é a construção de uma lírica crítico-discursiva, uma produção artística que avalia a arte com os termos, os instrumentos da própria arte. Esta perspectiva analítica é deflagrada pelos primeiros românticos (Schlegel e Novalis) e expande-se em duas direções: tanto o poema escrito a partir de uma reflexão sobre a arte ou a natureza (crítico em sua gênese), quanto a crítica, transmutada em poesia. A abordagem comparativa de estâncias do poeta com obras picturais nelas referenciadas evidencia o constante diálogo do poeta com as poéticas da visualidade e com as concepções estéticas da modernidade, mormente com a poética de Joan Miró. Através da abordagem comparativa, materializam-se dois caminhos privilegiados de experimentação estética: o percurso do poético ao plástico, em João Cabral; o caminho inverso, na obra do pintor catalão do plástico ao poético. Para ambos os artistas, os processos de exploração das linguagens artísticas ocasionam, como consequência extrema, a dissolução do plástico e do poético, rumo ao inefável na pintura e na poesia. Para Miró, os signos plásticos são poéticos, porque guardam em si um universo de possibilidades significativas que transcendem a ordem da própria coisa em si. E o alcance das transformações que a sua poética empreende afetará a poesia de modo análogo: os signos poéticos mostram-se plenamente poéticos, ao transcenderem a forma e o sentido, no âmbito da plasticidade da palavra. Se a palavra pode se tornar matéria (passar da abstração para a concreção), a matéria pintada pode ser poesia. Integram a constelação teórica desta investigação os principais filósofos que discutem o caráter crítico da poesia, desde os filósofos do primeiro romantismo (Schlegel e Novalis), até aqueles cujo pensamento está relacionado à modernidade ou à pós-modernidade (Benjamin, Adorno, Lyotard, Blumenberg e Agamben)

Reflective writing: The student nurse's perspective on reflective writing and poetry writing.

Summary Background Reflective writing is a mandatory part of nurse education but how students develop their skills and use reflection as part of their experiential learning remains relatively unknown. Understanding reflective writing in all forms from the perspective of a student nurse is therefore important. Objectives To explore the use of reflective writing and the use of poetry in pre-registered nursing students. Design A qualitative design was employed to explore reflective writing in pre-registered nursing students. Setting A small university in Scotland. Participants BSc (Hons) Adult and Mental Health Pre-registration Student Nurses. Methods Two focus groups were conducted with 10 student nurses during March 2012. Data was analysed thematically using the framework of McCarthy (1999). Results Students found the process of reflective writing daunting but valued it over time. Current educational methods, such as assessing reflective accounts, often lead to the ‘narrative’ being watered down and the student feeling judged. Despite this, reflection made students feel responsible for their own learning and research on the topic. Some students felt the use of models of reflection constricting, whilst poetry freed up their expression allowing them to demonstrate the compassion for their patient under their care. Conclusions Poetry writing gives students the opportunity for freedom of expression, personal satisfaction and a closer connection with their patients, which the more formal approach to reflective writing did not offer. There is a need for students to have a safe and supportive forum in which to express and have their experiences acknowledged without the fear of being judged.

Where the People Are: Language and Community in the Poetry of W.S. Graham

Francis, Matthew, Language and Community in the Poetry of W.S. Graham (Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2004) RAE2008

The Poetics of the Limit : Ethics and Politics in Modern and Contemporary American Poetry

Woods, Timothy, The Poetics of the Limit (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) RAE2008

'Preferring the wrong way': Mapping the Ethical Diversity of US Twentieth-Century Poetry

Woods, T. (2006). 'Preferring the wrong way': Mapping the Ethical Diversity of US Twentieth-Century Poetry. In C. Bigsby (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture (pp.450-468). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. RAE2008

A ?Perfect Circle'? Alchemy in the Poetry of Hester Pulter

Archer, Jayne, 'A ?Perfect Circle'? Alchemy in the Poetry of Hester Pulter', Literature Compass (2005) 2(1) pp.1-14 RAE2008

The Four Branches of the Mabinogi and Medieval Welsh Poetry

Hughes, I. (2006). The Four Branches of the Mabinogi and Medieval Welsh Poetry. Studi Celtici. 4, pp.155-193. RAE2008

Absolute forms in the poetry of the Gogynfeirdd: functionally obsolete archaisms or working system?

Rodway, S. (2002). Absolute forms in the poetry of the Gogynfeirdd: functionally obsolete archaisms or working system? Journal of Celtic Linguistics. 7, pp.63-84. RAE2008

Buland al-Ḥaydarī – poeta pokolenia prekursorów współczesnej poezji arabskiej. Interpretacja twórczości

Głównym celem dysertacji jest interpretacja twórczości Bulanda al-Ḥaydarīego (iracki poeta kurdyjskiego pochodzenia (1926-1996)). Utwory Al-Ḥaydarīego zawierają w sobie charakterystyczne cechy współczesnego wiersza arabskiego. Opisują ponadto najważniejsze historyczne, społeczne i osobiste doświadczenia literackiego pokolenia tego poety, jak również innych członków społeczności arabskiej w okresie po II wojnie światowej. Praca doktorska składa się z dwóch części. Pierwszą część poprzedza krótki opis stanu badań nad liryką Al-Ḥaydarīego. W pierwszym jej rozdziale przedstawiono życiorys i biografię literacką poety oraz wyjaśniono pojęcia takie jak: ‘współczesna poezja arabska’, ‘wolna poezja’, ‘poemat prozą’ czy ‘ruch wolnej poezji’. Wspomniano również o głównych nurtach w poezji arabskiej w latach 50. i 60. XX w., jak również ukazano sposób, w jaki modernistyczni poeci postrzegali poezję. Natomiast w drugim rozdziale przedstawiono pokrótce charakterystyczne cechy (stylistyczne, składniowe i melodyczne) współczesnego wiersza arabskiego i zilustrowano je fragmentami utworów Al-Ḥaydarīego. Druga część dysertacji składa się z pięciu rozdziałów. W każdym z nich przedstawiono jeden lub kilka głównych motywów oraz ich różne warianty: w pierwszym rozdziale – motyw miłość, w drugim – motyw istnienia (życie i śmierć), w trzecim – motywy ojczyzny, obczyzny, zaangażowania społecznego twórcy i jego wyobcowania, w czwartym – motyw przestrzeni (np. dom, droga, raj, piekło) oraz w piątym – motyw czasu (przeszłość, teraźniejszość, przyszłość).

"I have nothing to say, only to show": appropriation in the poetries of Trevor Joyce, Alan Halsey, and Susan Howe

This thesis studies contemporary poetry’s innovations in textual borrowing and the range and scope of its appropriative practices. The restrictions of the inherited definitions of appropriation include a limited capacity for expression and meaningfulness, a partial concept of appropriation’s critical capacity, and an inadequate sense of the poet’s individual and unique practice of appropriation. This thesis resolves the problematic constraints limiting contemporary definitions of appropriation by tracing the history of the practice to reveal an enduring relation between appropriation and poetic expression. Close readings of Trevor Joyce’s, Alan Halsey’s, and Susan Howe’s poetry serve as evidence of contemporary poetry’s development of appropriation beyond the current ascriptions and offer some direction on how the critical understanding of appropriation might be extended and redefined. Here, appropriation is recognized as another source of lyric expression, critical innovation, and conceptual development in contemporary poetry. This thesis encourages a new perspective on the purpose and processes of poetic appropriation and the consequences of its declarative potential for both poet and poem.

Andrew Marvell's Latin Poetry: From Text to Context (356pp.)

David Norbrook, Review of English Studies 56 (Sept. 2005), 675-6.
‘We have waited a long time for a study of Marvell’s Latin poetry; fortunately, Estelle Haan’s monograph generously makes good the loss ... One of her most intriguing suggestions … is that Marvell may have presented paired poems like ‘Ros’ and ‘On a Drop of Dew’, and the poems to the obligingly named Dr Witty, to his student Maria Fairfax as his own patterns for the pedagogical practice of double translation. Perhaps the most original parts of the book, however, move beyond the familiar canon to cover the generic range of the Latin verse. Haan offers a very full contextualization of the early Horatian Ode to Charles I in seventeenth-century exercises in parodia. In a rewarding reading of the poem to Dr Ingelo she shows how Marvell deploys the language of Ovid’s Tristia to present Sweden as a place of shivering exile, only to subvert this model with a neo-Virgilian celebration of Christina as a virtuous, city-building Dido. She draws extensively on historical as well as literary sources to offer very detailed contextualizations of the poem to Maniban and ‘Scaevola Scotto-Britannus’... This monograph opens up many new ways into the Latin verse, not least because it is rounded off with new texts and prose translations of the Latin poems. These make a substantial contribution in their own right. They are the best and most accurate translations to date (those in Smith’s edition having some lapses); they avoid poeticisms but bring out the structure of the poems' wordplay very clearly. This book brings us a lot closer to seeing Marvell whole.'

Vergilius Redivivus: Studies in Joseph Addison's Latin Poetry

J.W. Binns, Modern Language Review 101.2 (2006), 504-5:
‘This book is an important contribution to the study of Anglo-Latin poetry in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries … ’Haan provides an able and authoritative account …, setting the poems in their contexts, and providing for each a very clear and penetrating analysis which traces the classical well-springs that lie behind much of Addison’s Latin writing, and also calls attention to non-traditional elements’.