Dracula's Guest

Dracula's Castle

Exciting news! I've just discovered that the BBC is dramatizing Dracula for radio, in seven parts. You can listen to the first episode here. It's only available until next Thursday, however, so listen soon. There is also a BBC radio dramatization of 'Dracula's Guest', a chapter Bram Stoker initially intended for Dracula, but which was later published separately as a short story. You can find the text of the story here.

Jane Eyre - which edition?

Unfortunately nowhere seems to have the Oxford World's Classics edition of Jane Eyre in stock. I've therefore decided to stick with the Collins Classics edition, which is widely available from D&R, and elsewhere. We shall use this in class, ignoring or defacing the awful cover and introduction.  If you have a different edition, that's fine, but I'll give references to page numbers in the Collins. I'll also point you towards other good introductions to the novel elsewhere.

Pandora are ordering good numbers of the Oxford World's Classics editions of Dorian Gray and Dracula, so we'll use those when the time comes. 

See you tomorrow (if you are reading this on Thursday)!

Nineteenth-Century Novel II - editions and Friday's class

We have tried to contact Pandora to check stocks of the Oxford World's Classics edition of Jane Eyre. Unfortunately the relevant person will not be at work until Thursday, so we shall speak to her/him then. I should then be able to let you know the situation on Friday.

For Friday, please read the first chapter of Jane Eyre. You can find this online at Project Gutenberg. Enotes also has a useful online edition with notes explaining difficult words (you see, I can speak well of eNotes, even if it's through gritted teeth...). You don't need to do any other preparation for Friday's class. We'll start seminars NEXT week.

We will definitely use the Oxford World's Classics edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray. We will almost certainly also use the Oxford World's Classics edition of Dracula. Oxford are issuing a new edition this month, which should be available by the time we begin to read it. This is also, I think, a sign that Dracula's literary importance is increasingly being recognised.

Classroom mix-ups and course reading: Dylan Thomas

Sorry for having had to cancel today's class - the room we were supposed to be in has been mysteriously transformed into a computer lab, and apparently there wasn't another classroom free in the whole building. I will try to arrange a time for a catch-up lecture, hopefully before the end of the week. As soon as I know something, I'll put it here.

In the meantime, you should start to read Dylan Thomas. We will be focusing on the following poems: 'If I Were Tickled By The Rub Of Love' (a poem we should have read together on Valentine's Day!); ‘A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London’; 'Fern Hill'; and 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'. There should be enough in these poems to keep you busy, but if you want to explore more of Thomas's work, his Collected Poems 1934-1952 and his radio play Under Milk Wood are available for free download from Project Gutenberg Australia: follow this link or simply go to the home page and search for ‘Dylan Thomas’.

Have a look too at the readings and the documentary I posted in my last blog entry. Here is a link to Dylan Thomas reading 'Fern Hill' - now you have his recordings of all the poems we will focus upon.

Though lovers be lost love shall not...

Three of Dylan Thomas's greatest poems are about the battle with death and the possibility of overcoming it. Here they are, read by the man himself: 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night', 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion', and 'A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London'.

I also found a good documentary on Dylan Thomas, made by the BBC and broadcast in 2003. You can watch the whole thing on youtube. Here's a link to the first part. The first three minutes you might find difficult to follow - there's some mumbling, and some strong Welsh accents! - but it gets easier after that. It also includes some of Thomas's best readings of his poems.

Another great Welshman, Anthony Hopkins (you might know him better as Hannibal Lector) has also recorded readings of several Thomas poems. Here he is reading 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'. You can easily find other readings by him.

You can find the texts of these and other poems by Dylan Thomas all over the web - here's one site worth looking at.

Bosphorising...

Here are two nice pieces about Istanbul that appeared in the British media recently.

The first is an article from The Guardian which first appeared in Le Monde -  Istanbul Trembles at Pace of Change. It discusses how Istanbul has been transformed by development projects and internal immigration, displacing old communities.

The second is a piece on BBC Radio about the history of the Bosphorus. It also discusses the new verb, "to Bosphorise" - can any of you help improve my Turkish by telling me what this verb is, in Turkish?

More generally, I'd be very interested in your responses to either piece.

I know where is an hind...

Here is an interesting, short radio-essay on the deer  - a subject which I'm perhaps egotistically interested in because of my surname, Hart. In the programme Ruth Padel  mentions Sir Thomas Wyatt's sonnet 'Whoso List to Hunt', which we looked at in the Outlines course last semester (there is a good newspaper article about the poem here). Because of two homophones in particular (deer/dear; hart/heart), deer are often a significant symbol in English poetry  - but there are lots of other reasons, too. Have a listen - the programme begins one minute in.

And on a different, but connected note - do Turkish surnames usually have meanings? I'm guessing that they do. Anyone got a surname with an interesting meaning? Anyone called 'Hart' in Turkish? And does Turkey have a significant deer population?