I ended up submitting the blog post I’d planned for here to the local paper, so you can read that version here: https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2018/10/26/after-200-years-frankenstein-still-matters-opinion/1779830002/ Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of my favorite books to teach. Last fall I taught a course on the novel, and it’s a mainstay on my syllabi from the British survey to Romanticism to
In the 1820s and 1830s, James Kendrew published a series of chapbooks for children. Most of these are stories about Simple Simon, or Jack Spratt, or Tom Thumb, but one is “The Little Maid and the Gentleman; or, We Are Seven.” Kendrew reprints Wordsworth’s poem, adding the new title and including woodcuts for each stanza.
What do a jeweler’s shop, a southern liberal arts college, and Disney World have in common? English Romantic poets, of course. The 19th century was a long time ago, England is far away, and poetry isn’t as popular as Youtube. Teaching the Romantic poets — or just about any author or artist who doesn’t publish