Online: Dr. Schenker on The Rise of the Modern in England and America: A Look Back at 1922. Part I, A.E. Houseman

Dr. Mark Schenker of Yale College returns to Ridgefield Library (via Webinar) to present a series of lectures grounded in a consideration of the work of three major English and American poets whose writings informed the cultural sensibility of the opening decades of the 20th century. Topics will include the First World War; the engagement with the “primitive”; a complicated, even contradictory, response to progress; new uses of irony and symbolism; and the pervasive themes of alienation and death.

Readings will be selected from three works published 100 years ago: Last Poems by A. E. Housman (1859-1936); Late Lyrics and Earlier by Thomas Hardy (1840-1929); and The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965).

The first lecture in this series on March 22 is about the work of A.E. Housman. The next lecture on April 5 will focus on Thomas Hardy. And, the third lecture in this series on April 19 will feature the work of T.S. Elliot. All three lectures will be presented via Zoom at 7:00 pm. Please register below for the Webinar link.