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_We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have
gone the same steps as the Author_.' (John Keats to J.H. Reynolds,
Teignmouth May 1818) John Keats is one of Britain's best-known and
most-loved poets. Despite dying in Rome in 1821, at the age of just
25, his poems continue to inspire a new generation who reinterpret
and reinvent the ways in which we consume his work. Apart from his
long association with Hampstead, North London, he has not
previously been known as a poet of 'place' in the way we associate
Wordsworth with the Lake District, for example, and for many years
readers considered Keats's work remote from political and social
context. Yet Keats was acutely aware of and influenced by his
surroundings: Hampstead; Guy's Hospital in London where he trained
as a doctor; Teignmouth where he nursed his brother Tom; a walking
tour of the Lake District and Scotland; the Isle of Wight; the area
around Chichester and in Winchester, where his last great ode, _To
Autumn_, was composed. Far from the frail Romantic stereotype,
Keats captivated people with his vitality and strength of
character. He was also deeply interested in the life around him,
commenting in his many letters and his poetry on historic events
and the relationship between wealth and poverty. What impact did
the places he visited have on him and how have those areas changed
over two centuries? How do they celebrate their 'Keats connection'?
Suzie Grogan takes on a journey through Keats's life and
landscapes, introducing us to his best and most influential work.
In many ways a personal journey following a lifetime of study, the
reader is offered opportunities to reflect on the impact of poetry
and landscape on all our lives. The book is aimed at anyone wanting
to know more about the places Keats visited, the times he lived
through and the influences they may have had on his poetry.
Utilising primary sources such as Keats's letters to friends and
family and the very latest biographical and academic work, it
offers an accessible way to see Keats through the lens of the
places he visited and aims to spark a lasting interest in the real
Keats - the poet and the man.
More perhaps than any other composer, Edward Elgar (1857-1934) has
gained the status of an 'icon of locality', his music seemingly
inextricably linked to the English landscape in which he worked.
This, the first full-length study of Elgar's complex interaction
with his physical environment, explores how it is that such
associations are formed and whether it is any sense true that Elgar
alchemized landscape into music. It argues that Elgar stands at the
apex of an English tradition, going back to Blake, in which
creative artists in all media have identified and warned against
the self-harm of environmental degradation and that, following a
period in which these ideas were swept away by the swift but
shallow tide of Modernism in the decades after the First World War,
they have since resurfaced with a new relevance and urgency for
twenty-first century society. Written with the non-specialist in
mind, yet drawing on the rich resources of post-millennial
scholarship on Elgar, as well as geographical studies of place, the
book also includes many new insights relating to such aspects of
Elgar's output as his use of landscape typology in The Apostles,
and his encounter with Modernism in the late chamber music. It also
calls on the resources of contemporary social commentary, poetry
and, especially, English landscape art to place Elgar and his
thought in the broader cultural milieu of his time. A survey of
recent recordings is included, in the hope that listeners, both
familiar and unfamiliar with Elgar's music, will feel inspired to
embark on a voyage of (re)discovery of its endlessly rewarding
treasures.
A fresh perspective on the history of the post-war period, and the
plight of a traumatised nation. We know that millions of soldiers
were scarred by their experiences in the First World War trenches,
but what happened after they returned home? Suzie Grogan reveals
the First World War's disturbing legacy for soldiers and their
families, exploring the myth of a nation of 'broken men' and 'spare
women'. In 1922 the British Parliament published a report into the
situation of thousands of mentally ill ex-soldiers still in
hospital. Suzie Grogan has examined what happened to these men,
what sort of treatments were on offer to them, and what reception
did they receive from their families and society? Drawing on a
variety of original sources, Suzie Grogan combines personal stories
with a wider narrative of the war to show the true extent of the
trauma experienced by the survivors. She also uncovers fascinating
neglected areas, like the surge in spiritualism and the effects of
the Zeppelin raids on the Home Front.
Mental illness can affect anyone. No walk of life, career or
privilege offers immunity and one in four will experience mental
ill health at some point in their lives. Yet the stigma remains and
discrimination is still common. This book is an attempt to
challenge that stigma and inspire others. The pieces vary widely -
from a straightforward account of depression to the heartbreak of a
parent at the loss of a child. Poetry and prose combine to offer
stories of suffering and pain, but also hope, laughter and life.
The authors are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and friends. They
are everyone; all of us. This book could save your life.
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