Can MYSTICISM Free us from Ourselves? | Prof Simon Critchley

Who was the real Emily Brontë? How did a seemingly quiet young woman living in a Yorkshire parsonage create Wuthering Heights, one of the wildest, darkest and most extraordinary novels in English literature? And why does Emily Brontë remain such an enigmatic figure nearly two centuries after her death? In this episode of The Scholar's Armchair, Dr John Burton talks to Deborah Lutz, Professor of Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature at Penn State University, about her remarkable new biography, This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë. Drawing on previously inaccessible manuscripts, historical records and the material world of the Brontë household, Lutz brings us closer to the elusive woman behind Wuthering Heights. Together, we explore Emily's extraordinary imagination, her relationship with her sisters Charlotte and Anne, the fictional worlds they created as children, and the importance of the Yorkshire moors, animals, weather and the natural world to her writing. We also discuss how Emily combined the ordinary demands of domestic life with an astonishingly rich imaginative existence, and how her fascination with freedom, imprisonment, death and the supernatural shaped both her poetry and her only novel. Above all, we ask whether the familiar image of Emily Brontë as a solitary, mysterious genius has prevented us from understanding the woman and the remarkable artist she really was. ABOUT THE GUEST Deborah Lutz is the George and Barbara Kelly Professor in Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature at Pennsylvania State University. She is an acclaimed scholar of Victorian literature and the author of several books, including The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects and Victorian Paper Art and Craft. Her latest book, This Dark Night, offers a fascinating new perspective on the life, imagination and literary achievement of Emily Brontë. BOOK AND AUTHOR LINKS 📖 This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë — Bloomsbury Publishing (UK): https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/this-dark-night-9781399417082/ 🎓 Deborah Lutz — Penn State University: https://english.la.psu.edu/directory/dzl5730/ JOIN THE CONVERSATION If you could sit down with Emily Brontë and ask her just one question, what would it be? Share your question in the comments below. I'd love to hear your thoughts! If you enjoy conversations about great literature, literary history and the fascinating lives of writers, please consider subscribing to The Scholar's Armchair for more interviews with leading authors and scholars. #EmilyBrontë #WutheringHeights #DeborahLutz #BrontëSisters #VictorianLiterature

What happens when exiles create a cultural world of their own?In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, Dr John Burton talks to Dr Annalisa Nicholson of King’s College London about her fascinating book, A Salon-in-Exile: Hortense Mancini and the French Diaspora in Restoration London. Nicholson reconstructs the remarkable intellectual salon established in London by Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin, one of the most celebrated and unconventional women of the Restoration. After fleeing an unhappy marriage and eventually settling in the England of Charles II, Mancini helped create a cosmopolitan meeting place where French and European exiles mixed with Restoration London's cultural elite. The salon became a space for conversation, literature, performance, gambling, intellectual exchange and experimentation, bringing together different nationalities, religions and ways of life. We discuss Mancini's extraordinary life, the culture of the seventeenth-century salon, her relationship with fellow exile Charles de Saint-Évremond, and the ways in which displacement could create unexpected opportunities for freedom and creativity. We also explore the salon as a kind of alternative cultural space, comparable in some respects to other literary coteries and intellectual circles, where conversation, play and sociability could allow ideas and identities to be explored more freely.At the heart of our conversation is a larger question: does exile simply remove people from centres of cultural influence, or can exiles create new cultural centres of their own?LINKS📚 Annalisa Nicholson, A Salon-in-Exile: Hortense Mancini and the French Diaspora in Restoration London https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/saloninexile-9781350415775/🎓 Dr Annalisa Nicholson – King’s College LondonAnnalisa Nicholson's university profile https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/annalisa-nicholson☕️Buy me a coffee! http://www.buymeacoffee.com/drjohnburton#RestorationEngland #HortenseMancini #LiteraryHistory #EarlyModernHistory #CharlesII #FrenchHistory #WomensHistory #Exile #LiterarySalons #RestorationLiterature #CulturalHistory #AnnalisaNicholson

Can poetry act as a time machine into the past? What can a poem reveal about history that archaeology, chronicles and official records cannot?In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, Dr John Burton talks to Professor Catherine Clarke about her fascinating book A History of England in 25 Poems, which tells more than 1,300 years of English history through poetry.Beginning with Cædmon’s Hymn and travelling through medieval England, Chaucer, Thomas Wyatt, the Great Fire of London, Victorian Britain, the World Wars and into the present day, Catherine explores poetry as something more than a literary record. A poem can preserve traces of another person’s thoughts, emotions and imagination, allowing us to enter something of the psychological world of people who lived centuries before us. Her book describes poems as portals into the past, connecting us with the experiences and imaginations of those who lived through history. We discuss whether poetry can really be used as historical evidence, how poets have helped to create and challenge ideas of England and Englishness, who gets to tell a nation’s story, and what voices from the margins can reveal that conventional histories sometimes leave behind.We also explore some of the remarkable poems Catherine has chosen, from Cædmon and The Battle of Maldon to Chaucer, Wyatt, Tennyson, Edward Thomas, W. H. Auden, Geoffrey Hill and Grace Nichols.Catherine Clarke is Professor at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and Director of the Victoria County History of England. LINKS📖 Catherine Clarke, A History of England in 25 PoemsPublisher: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/461263/a-history-of-england-in-25-poems-by-clarke-catherine/9781802069624Buy me a coffee! ☕️ http://buymeacoffee.com/drjohnburtonIf you enjoy conversations about literature, history and the ideas that have shaped our culture, subscribe to The Scholar’s Armchair for more interviews with leading writers and scholars.#CatherineClarke #EnglishHistory #Poetry #EnglishLiterature #History #CaedmonsHymn #Chaucer #LiteraryHistory #TheScholarsArmchair

How much freedom do we really have to write the story of our own lives?In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Anne E. Fernald about her new book, Her Own Voice: Eight Women Who Rewrote Life and Art.With Virginia Woolf and 'A Room of One’s Own' as a guiding presence, Anne tells the stories of eight remarkable twentieth-century women: Margaret Wise Brown, Eileen Chang, Vera Brittain, Muriel Rukeyser, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Una Marson, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Dorothy Arzner.We talk about what it means to find your own voice, why the stories we inherit can shape the lives we believe are possible, and what gives someone the courage to cross the threshold into a different kind of life. We also discuss wandering and uncertainty as creative forces, the freedom to change your mind, the relationship between art and political commitment, and the obstacles that remain even for women determined to make lives and careers on their own terms.Underlying our conversation is a question that reaches beyond these eight women: how far can any of us become the authors of our own lives, and how can we make possibilities available to those who come after us?LINKSHer Own Voice: Eight Women Who Rewrote Life and Art — Beacon Press:https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/816935/her-own-voice-by-anne-e-fernald/Anne Fernald:https://annefernald.com/If you've enjoyed this video you can buy me a coffee at: https://buymeacoffee.com/drjohnburton

Was Charles Dickens not only one of the great novelists, but also one of the great psychologists of the Victorian age?