English Literature taster session: How to Die Like a Romantic Poet

For human beings, death is the ultimate mystery. We all know that we will die. We will lose people close to us. But we know nothing concrete about what comes afterwards. And that’s where poetry comes in. Poetry attempts to represent our feelings, face the horror of death, and imagine what might happen in the afterlife. The Romantic poets were intimately acquainted with loss. This talk discusses their poetry about death to think about what we can learn from them and includes William Wordsworth’s Lucy poems, John Keats’s early death and his poem, This Living Hand, how Percy Bysshe Shelley reacted to Keats’s death with his elegy, Adonais, and finishes with a section on little-known female poet, Letitia Landon, and her poetry about her legacy living on after her death. This talk teaches us how to live, and die, like a Romantic poet.

Click the 'visit website' button to be taken to the University of Sheffield's subject taster booking form. Complete the form with your details and submit to secure your place to attend the session!