Graham Fawcett

writer, teacher, translator and broadcaster

e-mail: grahamkfawcett@gmail.com

telephone: 020 7405 3997

Graham Fawcett


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Events and Courses Calendar
with Graham Fawcett

CLICK ON THE EVENT YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT

London
Other
Locations
Italy
Spain
SEPTEMBER         

The Book You Always Meant To Read

Brand new series on Dante's Divine Comedy

LAUNCH NIGHT

Booking opens 31 August

First night in this series - Monday 6th September 2010

St Olave's, Hart Street, EC3

Changes

Poetry writing day in the country

Booking open

Saturday 11th September 2010

Peper Harow, near Godalming, Surrey

 

 

Poetry Places 6

Eliot's Burnt Norton

Booking open

Saturday 18th September 2010 Gloucestershire

OCTOBER  

 

   

A Bridge Just Far Enough

Saturday morning walk and pub lunch

Booking opens in August - watch this space for the date

2nd October 2010

Southwark

     

 

The Book You Always Meant To Read

Brand new series on Dante's Divine

Comedy

The Journey Begins - Dante Inferno, cantos 1-8

Booking opens 31 August

Monday 4th October 2010

St Olave's, Hart Street, EC3

LAUNCH OF NEW SERIES

Open Country 1

Edward Thomas in Steep

Booking opens Wed 21st July

Saturday 9th October 2010

Steep, near Petersfield, Hampshire

Poetry Places 2

Eliot's East Coker

Booking open
 
NOVEMBER

 

     

The Book You Always Meant To Read

The deepening route - Dante Inferno, cantos 9-15

Booking opens 31 August

Monday 1st November 2010

St Olave's, Hart Street, EC3

Saturday 27th November 2010

Dorset

Pepys and The Royal Society

SPECIAL EDITION OF THIS LECTURE FROM THE VERY SUCCESSFUL PARALLEL LIVES SERIES TO MARK THE 350TH ANNIVERSARIES OF THE FOUNDING OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY

AND THE START OF PEPYS'S DIARY

Booking opens 31 August

Monday 29th November 2010

St Olave's, Hart Street, EC3

DECEMBER

 

     

The Book You Always Meant To Read

Navigating the precipice - Dante Inferno, cantos 16-22

Booking opens 31 August

Monday 6th December 2010

St Olave's, Hart Street, EC3

         
2011        
Poetry Places 1
Milton and Galileo
2011
Florence

Poetry Places 3

Rome

   

2011

Rome

 

Poetry Places 3  

Benjamin Britten's Poets' Weekend

 

2011

Aldeburgh

   
2012        
Poetry Places 4
Giacomo Leopardi
2012
Recanati

Dates For Your 2010 Diary

(July-December)

 
     
   
   
   
   

 

this calendar is usually updated every two or three days

 


2010

 SUMMER INTO AUTUMN


Monday 6th September 2010, 615pm (supper with wine) for a 645pm start

LAUNCH OF NEW DANTE SERIES

 The Book You Always 

      Meant to Read

     fifteen monthly supper

      lectures at St Olave's,

    Hart Street, London EC3

         (near Tower Hill) 

                     on 

Dante's Divine Comedy

          Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

        continuing on the first Monday of every month

               except January (17th) and May (9th)

                 - no programme in August 2011

               

More details coming shortly - watch this space

NOW BOOKING - OR BUY AT THE DOOR ON THE NIGHT

Admission: £15 per head (includes hot food, with vegetarian option, and wine).

Catering by Sumo Salad - hot food and salads

If you would like to book in advance, make payment out to St Olave Churchwardens and send to: Phil Manning, Church Manager, St Olave Rectory, 8 Hart Street, London EC3R 7NB

Phil Manning may also be contacted at: sanctuaryinthecity@mac.com

Click here for a printable map (new window - Adobe Acrobat is required, which can be downloaded here)


Saturday 11th September 2010

DAIRY COTTAGE, PEPER HAROW,

NEAR GOLDALMING, SURREY

Changes    

with Graham Fawcett

A One-Day Poetry Writing Workshop at Dairy Cottage, Peper Harow

 

Please arrive any time from 1030 to 1045

Dairy Cottage and its immediate surroundings are ideal for a day's writing retreat. This Grade 2 original dairy of Peper Harow House has a small paved walled garden, an enclosed lawn and an area of parkland landscaped by Capability Brown down to the River Wey.

PROGRAMME FOR THE DAY

1100           

Reading by Graham on Changes, offering active ‘leads’ for your writing

1150     Break for coffee

1210     Guided and free writing session exploring those ‘leads’

1320     Picnic lunch (please bring)

1415     Writing session in house and/or garden

1545     Tea

1610     Voluntary read-round and discussion

1700     End of day

 Please refer to www.peperharow.info/dc/DCdirect.doc for directions if planning to come by car (for Adobe Acrobat format map, go to www.peperharow.info/dc/DCphmaps.pdf).

Train travellers please catch the 0915 train from London Waterloo to Farncombe station (arrives 0959) from where transport to (and, at the end of the day, from) the house will be provided for a small charge.

 

Cost £25 per person. Numbers are limited to 12, so early booking is advised. 6 places sold, 6 still available.

 --------------------------------PLEASE CUT AND PASTE FROM HERE  --------------------------------------                                                          Saturday 11th September 2010

                          Changes – a writing day with Graham Fawcett

                                        (early booking advised as numbers are limited)

 

PLEASE TICK BOX:  I’d like to enrol for Changes - a writing day with Graham Fawcett  to be held at the Dairy Cottage, Peper Harow near Goldalming on Saturday 11th September 2010. I would like _____ tickets, and enclose a cheque for £25 per person which I understand does not include lunch. I will be travelling by car/by train (please delete whichever does not apply).

 

Please make your cheque payable to Graham Fawcett and send it with the completed booking form to Jill Hepple, 10 Sheen Common Road, Richmond, Surrey TW10 5BN. You will then be sent your ticket(s) for the day.

 

NAME(S):

 

POSTAL AND E-MAIL ADDRESSES:

 

 

TELEPHONE NUMBERS: 

 

 


 

Saturday 18th September 2010, 1030am-445pm    

CHIPPING CAMPDEN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE        

            POETRY PLACES 6
                                ELIOT’S BURNT NORTON DAY

                                               Norton Estate
                          at Burnt Norton and Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire                                                                         

                                                   with Graham Fawcett

                                                    

 It was on a late summer day in September 1934 when, out on the latest in a succession of long country walks with Emily Hale – who was very important to him and had come over from America to stay with relatives in Chipping Campden – T S Eliot ventured off the road, walked down through the woods and found himself in the upper garden of the estate of a local manor house, Burnt Norton. The owners hadn’t invited him, he just arrived. No-one knows how long he and Emily stayed. That they were there at all is barely suggested by the poem, whose lines still resonate for us today not for any sense of tangible geography but from the gift, handed on, of an unseen presence in a landscape of the poetry’s own making.   

So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,

Along the empty alley, into the box circle,

To look down into the drained pool.

Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,

And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,

And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,

The surface glittered out of heart of light,

And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.

Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.

Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,

Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind

Cannot bear very much reality.

Time past and time future

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

                 from T S Eliot, ‘Burnt Norton’ in Collected Poems 1909 -1962, faber & faber 1963)

In this the third in this popular series of Eliot Quartet location days, Graham Fawcett will seek to recreate the poet’s own experience of Burnt Norton the place, and point to clues in the poet’s life and work and his choice of moods and images, to help unravel the mysteries of the poem. The highlights of this late Summer day will be a specially arranged visit to the Burnt Norton gardens – now normally not open to the public – and a close reading, one by one spaced through the day, of the five ‘movements’ of the poem which Eliot realised later had been, and could become, the start of something greater, his Four Quartets

PLEASE CHECK TIMES AGAINST CURRENT DETAILS ON TRAIN ENQUIRY WEBSITE

0721    Recommended train leaves London Paddington for Moreton-in-Marsh (via Oxford)
0857   
Recommended train arrives Moreton-in-Marsh

Come out of the station, turn left and then follow the road round to the right. At the junction, turn left and you will be in the centre of Moreton-in-Marsh.

PLEASE CHECK TIMES AND STOP LOCATIONS AGAINST CURRENT BUS COMPANY WEBSITE DETAILS

0930    Recommended bus for Chipping Campden (Johnsons Coaches service numbers 21 or 22 – the Stratford-upon-Avon service) leaves the Corn Exchange, Moreton-in-Marsh.     

For those not coming from London, the following bus services also call at Chipping Campden

22B Stratford upon Avon-Chipping Campden Welcombe                           554 Evesham-Chipping Campden Cresswell                                            554 Evesham-Chipping Campden Henshaws                                           608 Mickleton-Cheltenham Pulhams Coaches

   

1012  Bus arrives Chipping Camden Town Hall. Those coming by car will be glad to know that there is good parking in the town.

From 1015  Meeting time in the Upper Room of the Town Hall for rail, bus and car travellers.

1030    Eliot’s Burnt Norton Day with Graham Fawcett begins in the Upper Room of the Town Hall, High Street, Chipping Campden.

1030-1125  Eliot’s Burnt Norton Day 1 with GF – the background to the writing of ‘Burnt Norton’, including a close reading of §1 of Eliot’s poem.

1130  Short walk along high street.

1135-1220  Specially arranged access to a local address (by kind permission of the present owner) which is often overlooked as a key feature of the story surrounding the writing of the poem. Eliot’s Burnt Norton Day 2 with GF.

1220  20-yard walk to The Lygon Arms for a pre-ordered lunch (menus, including a wide range of dishes ranging from £5 to £15, with many under £10, will be available in advance).

1230-1340 Lunch at The Lygon Arms.

1340  Set out on foot (a walk of less than a mile) or in cars to the Burnt Norton estate.

1355-1410 Arrive Burnt Norton, where we will have specially arranged access to the gardens – by kind permission of the Earl of Harrowby.

1415-1630  Eliot’s Burnt Norton Day 3 with GF in the grounds and gardens of Burnt Norton, including a close reading of §§2,3,4 and 5 of Eliot’s poem.

The cost of Eliot’s Burnt Norton Day will be £40 for the teaching sessions (or £30* concessionary rate for 18 years & under, senior citizens, full-time students, unwaged - ES40 - and disabled)  and will include the admission charge to the Burnt Norton gardens, but will exclude lunch, refreshments, and transport during the day. The nearest station is Moreton-in-Marsh, from where there is a bus service – its timetable available on the internet, see bus company names above - to Chipping Campden, our base for the day and where car-drivers should park. We will then walk (30 minutes) or take a local bus to the entrance to the estate. Please make your cheque, for £40 or £30 concessionary rate, payable to Graham Fawcett and send it with the completed booking form to him at 2 Harpur Mews, London WC1N 3PE. You will then be sent your ticket(s) for the day.

 

Enquiries to: Graham Fawcett on grahamkfawcett@googlemail.com or 0207 405 3997. Details of Graham Fawcett’s work, including the next East Coker and Little Gidding Days, are available at www.grahamfawcett.co.uk, where this event is also being publicised.

Click here for booking form

 

 

 


Saturday 2nd October 2010, 10am-12noon

A BRIDGE JUST FAR ENOUGH

a new late summer Saturday morning walk

through Southwark's rich nook-and-cranny past of poetry, drama and prose

THE WALK

Starting outside Sam Wanamaker's Globe Playhouse, we head for the often unfamiliar and sometimes apparently secret interior of this parish, stopping to honour in the words of poetry and history the sites, ruins and miraculous survivors of centuries, including Winchester Palace; the Bankside Anchor; the Tabard, Goat, Christopher and George Inns; the old Clink and Marshalsea prisons; a tunnel in memory of the Frost Fair and another hiding the destination of one of the most important night walks in English poetry; and living memories of many a poet and writer from Chaucer through Shakespeare and on down the years. A gentle walk with no hills and a few short flights of steps, and all of it leading inexorably to lunch.

THE LUNCH

is at The Roebuck, Great Dover Street, where a bright and comfortable openroom beyond the main bar is reserved for us. The menu is very good, nicely varied and inexpensive, and all of the food " is freshly prepared in The Roebuck kitchen".

THE COST

£15 excluding lunch - to book, read on.

Booking opens in August - watch this space for the date

HOW TO BOOK

------------------------------------------PLEASE CUT AND PASTE HERE--------------------------------------------

                                       Saturday 2nd October 2010

                             A Bridge Just Far Enough

                                a new late summer Saturday morning walk

            through Southwark's rich nook-and-cranny past of poetry, drama and prose

                                                         with Graham Fawcett

 

□ PLEASE TICK BOX:  I’d like to enrol for A Bridge Just Far Enough Saturday morning walk, followed by lunch, in Southwark with Graham Fawcett to be held on Saturday 2nd October 2010.

I would like _____ tickets, and I enclose a cheque for £15 per person which I understand does not include lunch.

 

Please make your cheque payable to Graham Fawcett and send it with the completed booking form to him at 2 Harpur Mews, London WC1N 3PE. You will then be sent your ticket(s) for the walk.

 

NAME(S):

 

POSTAL AND E-MAIL ADDRESSES:

 

 TELEPHONE NUMBERS:

 

□ PLEASE TICK BOX: Please send me details of other events, including walks, coming up in 2010-2011

 

TO ALERT FRIENDS

□ PLEASE TICK BOX: Please send details of this event/other events, including walks, coming up in 2010-2011 to:  (ADD NAME(S) AND E-ADDRESSES HERE)

                                               


Monday 4th October 2010, 615pm (supper with wine) for a 645pm start

                        NEW DANTE SERIES

         

 The Book You Always Meant to Read

      Dante's Divine Comedy

                                               LECTURE 1

                                  

        Dante's Inferno

           Cantos I-VIII

      the first of fourteen monthly

            supper lectures at St Olave's,

               Hart Street, London EC3

                    (near Tower Hill)                     

                     continuing on the first Monday of every month

                            except January (17th) and May (9th)

                               - no programme in August 2011

black and white illustration from the Inferno by Gustave Dore

More details coming shortly - watch this space

NOW BOOKING - OR BUY AT THE DOOR ON THE NIGHT

Admission: £15 per head (includes hot food, with vegetarian option, and wine).

Catering by Sumo Salad - hot food and salads

If you would like to book in advance, make payment out to St Olave Churchwardens and send to: Phil Manning, Church Manager, St Olave Rectory, 8 Hart Street, London EC3R 7NB

Phil Manning may also be contacted at: sanctuaryinthecity@mac.com

Click here for a printable map (new window - Adobe Acrobat is required, which can be downloaded here)

 

 


Saturday 9th October 2010, 0915-1515

OPEN COUNTRY

The launch of a brand new series combining fresh air, an invigorating walk and a good lunch with an exploration of the life, work and home ground of poets in the English countryside

famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/edward_thomas/photo

STEEP, NEAR PETERSFIELD, HAMPSHIRE

OPEN COUNTRY 1

Edward Thomas in Steep

The village of Steep, still far enough from Petersfield to be deep in the most breathtaking Hampshire countryside, was, understandably enough when you see it, the home, for ten of his ever-burgeoning writing years, of that all-too-often unsung

hero of English nature praise prose turned - thanks to the timely encouragement of the young Robert Frost – poet of that

England, Edward Thomas: “the land is wild”, he tells us in an early Steep poem, ‘Up in the Wind’, and, in another, he writes of how a local path

   

                                             looks

As if it led on to some legendary

Or fancied place where men have wished to go

And stay . . .

 

On this first relaxed walk in the new Open Country series, we will follow some of the paths Edward Thomas took, stopping here and there to read and listen to him while seeing, more or less unchanged, what he saw and marvelled at in the mind’s eye and then on the page.

 

The walk will last just over 3 hours including generous poetry stops, and will be at a gentle pace, quite a lot of it on the flat and with one 800m gradually steeping ascent through woodland and a 600m stiffish descent on a grassy chalk slope which has steps cut into it. Stout footwear and walking poles recommended.

 

Along the way we will drop in briefly on an unexpected place to find in the middle of nowhere on a country lane, the impressive and active workshop of a local furniture maker who became a leading member of the Arts and Crafts movement, Edward Barnsley. At the end of the walk, we are expected for lunch, in a rather lovely spot, at The Harrow, a country pub bristling with honours - in recognition of its food (“everything is home-made”), welcome, and both indoor and outdoor atmospheres – from the Good Food Guide 2010, Lonely Planet (“cosiest pub”, 2009), and the Good Pub Guide (“most unspoilt pub – 1996”, and nothing has altered it since).

 

The day will also feature a visit to Steep Church to see the Laurence Whistler windows commemorating the lives of Edward and Helen Thomas.

Click here for further details and booking form

Booking opens Wednesday 21st July 2010

Quotations from Edward Thomas's poetry are taken from Edward Thomas Collected Poems edited by R George Thomas, Faber, 2004


Saturday 16th October 2010

EAST COKER (NEAR YEOVIL) SOMERSET
POETRY PLACES 2

“Home is where one starts from. As we grow older

The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated . . .”

(T S Eliot, from ‘East Coker’, in Collected Poems 1909 -1962, faber & faber 1963)


ELIOT’S EAST COKER DAY 2010

DAY EVENT WITH TAUGHT AND GUIDED SESSIONS
in East Coker (near Yeovil), Somerset

COMMENTS AFTER ELIOT'S EAST COKER DAY 2008

What a good day. I drove away from it feeling a bit like when you've seen a totally absorbing film and you can’t quite reconnect with the real world - or you want very much to connect what you've just experienced to the real world. Thanks so much for bringing that amazing work to such life - and death (!)  - for us all.

Greta Stoddart

Thank you so much for the wonderful East Coker Day. It opened out my reading of Eliot in the best possible way & has given me much food for thought and for writing.

Pam Hope

 

Why did American poet T S Eliot choose this village in Somerset as the setting of East Coker, the second of his world-famous Four Quartets? Graham Fawcett recreates the atmospheres of the poem on location, explores Eliot’s choice of moods and images for this setting, and seeks to unravel the poem’s mysteries with the help not only of East Coker itself and the autumn day we’ll spend there but also clues in the poet’s life as he worked on the poem.

1045    Coffee at Helyar Arms. Pre-order lunch: fine menu from sandwiches to meals.
1100    Eliot’s East Coker 1 with GF
at the Helyar Arms. The story of T S Eliot’s Somerset connections, of his Four Quartets and then of East Coker. Close reading of East Coker §1.
1210  
Leave Helyar Arms and walk (5 mins) through the orchard to the church, St Michael and All Angels, the church of Eliot’s ancestors and where the poet’s ashes are buried and there is a corner dedicated to him.
1215-1325   Eliot’s East Coker 2 with GF in the church and churchyard. Close reading of East Coker §3.
1330-1430 
 Lunch at the Helyar. Eliot’s East Coker 3 with GF. Close reading of East Coker §3.
1430-1545   Eliot’s East Coker 4 with GF
at the Helyar Arms. Close reading of East Coker §4 and 5.
1545   
End of Eliot’s East Coker Day. Taxis or cars back to Yeovil stations.

Your ticket for the day excludes refreshments, lunch, transport (the taxi ride in each direction for train travellers) and a £1 donation to church funds.

Enquiries to: 020 7405 3997 or grahamkfawcett@gmail.com

Click here for booking form

COMMENTS AFTER ELIOT’S EAST COKER DAY 2007

"Thanks so much for a colourful, enthusiastic and enlightening day of East Coker and T S Eliot's beginnings, much food for thought remains and now I feel more able to be in the poem and look around."

Michael Scott Byrne

"Thank you for such a great and thought-provoking day. It had tremendous depth in it – which Eliot would have appreciated - and I think it was really great for all the participants (myself included) who don’t get offered that kind of breadth of discussion or teaching so often. It was really inspiring."

Catherine Simmonds

"Many many thanks for a wonderful and illuminating day in East Coker. I am sure Eliot would have approved. Rarely do I ever get the chance to analyse a pome in such depth . .

James Crowden


Monday 1st November 2010, 615pm (supper with wine) for a 645pm start

                        NEW DANTE SERIES

         

 The Book You Always Meant to Read

            Dante's Divine Comedy

                                        LECTURE 2

                  Dante's Inferno

                    Cantos IX-XV

                                  

               

   the second of fourteen monthly

            supper lectures at St Olave's,

               Hart Street, London EC3

                    (near Tower Hill)                     

                     continuing on the first Monday of every month

                            except January (17th) and May (9th)

                               - no programme in August 2011

black and white illustration from the Inferno by Gustave Dore

More details coming shortly - watch this space

NOW BOOKING - OR BUY AT THE DOOR ON THE NIGHT

Admission: £15 per head (includes hot food, with vegetarian option, and wine).

Catering by Sumo Salad - hot food and salads

If you would like to book in advance, make payment out to St Olave Churchwardens and send to: Phil Manning, Church Manager, St Olave Rectory, 8 Hart Street, London EC3R 7NB

Phil Manning may also be contacted at: sanctuaryinthecity@mac.com

Click here for a printable map (new window - Adobe Acrobat is required, which can be downloaded here)

 


  Saturday 6th November 2010

           POETRY PLACES 5
                 ELIOT’S LITTLE GIDDING DAY
                          at Ferrar House, Little Gidding, Cambridgeshire                                                                                         

                                            with Graham Fawcett

             Saturday November 6th 2010, from 1000am for 1030am-430pm   

What brought T S Eliot to the village of Little Gidding in 1936, and why, 6 years later, did he decide to make it the setting and presiding spirit of the fourth and last of his Four Quartets ?  On location in Ferrar House and Little Gidding Church, Graham Fawcett will seek to recreate Eliot’s own experience of this place, and point to clues in the poet’s life and work and his choice of moods and images, to help unravel the mysteries of Eliot’s Little Gidding. Highlights of the morning and afternoon of this Spring day will include close reading, one by one spaced through the day, of the five ‘movements’ of what is widely believed to be his finest work.

The cost of the day will be £38 for the teaching sessions (or £28* concs. for 18 years & under, senior citizens,

full-time students, unwaged - ES40 - and disabled) and a further £22 for coffee, lunch, and afternoon tea at Ferrar House.

For rail-travellers who would like to share a taxi from Huntingdon Rail Station OR Sawtry Green to Little Gidding,

please say so on your form.

Make your cheque, for £60 or £50 concessionary rate, payable to Graham Fawcett and send it with the completed

booking form to him at

2 Harpur Mews, London WC1N 3PE.

You will then be sent your ticket(s) for the day.

Enquiries to: Graham Fawcett on grahamkfawcett@googlemail.com or 0207 405 3997.

Details of Graham Fawcett’s work and news on this event are available at www.grahamfawcett.co.uk.

 

COMMENT ON ONE OF GRAHAM FAWCETT’S ELIOT’S LITTLE GIDDING DAYS

It was a great session – so lively and enlightening, and you were so informative. I hadn’t read Eliot in any detail for years and years, and it made me anxious to go back and read more.  You gave us all so much to think about and mull over and go off and pursue further. What I realised when re-reading the Quartets was just how much of Eliot has become part of my mental landscape – a bit like the Bible and Shakespeare..  I kept finding myself muttering, “Oh, of course, that’s where that quotation comes from!”  Joan McGavin  

COMMENT ON GRAHAM FAWCETT’S LATEST ELIOT’S LITTLE GIDDING DAY
Many thanks for a splendidly enriching day of T.S. Eliot (and much more!) yesterday. It was my first visit to Little Gidding and my first day of this sort and both made a big impression. The opportunity to spend a day
exploring the poem in that place was indeed a privilege. Thank you for enabling it to happen and for the open and enthusiastic way in which you shared you knowledge and invited all of us to contribute.

Reverend Liz Griffiths

   

 

Click here for booking form

 


Saturday 27th November 2010, 1030am-430pm

DORCHESTER, DORSET

DANTE’S DRAMATIC JOURNEY PART THREE

      Beyond The Mountain Summit

                           EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY PARADISE

                         with Graham Fawcett of The Poetry School  

       Judge Jeffreys' House, 6 High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1UJ

                             

 An introduction to, and close reading of, Dante’s Divine Comedy §2 – Purgatorio, Cantos XXX-XXXIII and §3 - Paradiso

     Gustav Dore's study of Jupiter from Dante's Paradiso - canto XVIII, lines 76-77

                                  

“Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third”, declared T S Eliot in his 1929 essay on the poet.  Dante’s Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line verse narrative of heart-stopping brilliance, written in terza rima, the beguiling aba bcb cdc rhyme scheme which he had invented, tells the apparently autobiographical story of how, at Easter in the year 1300, Dante had set out, with the ghost of the Roman poet Virgil as his guide, on a life-changing pilgrimage. Dante's Dramatic Journey - Part Three follows Dante from his reunion with Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise ever upward - "my course is set for an uncharted sea", he declares - beyond the summit of the Mount of Purgatory and through the great series of concentric spheres surrounding the Earth to the climax of his pilgrimage.

 

A restaurant room at Judge Jeffeys' House is reserved for us through the day, including for lunch.

Enquiries to: Graham Fawcett on grahamkfawcett@googlemail.com or 0207 405 3997.  

Further details of Graham Fawcett’s work are available at www.grahamfawcett.co.uk

 

-------------------------PLEASE CUT AND PASTE HERE, COMPLETE AND SEND---------------------------

 

Dante’s Dramatic Journey – Part Three  Saturday 27th November 2010  I’d like to enrol on Dante’s Dramatic Journey – Part Three – Beyond the Mountain Summit - at Judge Jeffreys' House in Dorchester on Saturday 27th November 2010.

 

NAME(S):

POSTAL AND E-MAIL ADDRESSES:

 

 

TELEPHONE NUMBERS:

 

I enclose a cheque for £35* (or £25* concessionary rate for 18 years and under, senior citizens, full-time students, unwaged - ES40 - and disabled), which does not include refreshments or lunch.  Please make your cheque payable to Graham Fawcett and send it with the completed booking form to Graham Fawcett, 2 Harpur Mews, London WC1N 3PE. You will then be sent your ticket(s) for the day.

 


Monday 29 November 2010

from 615pm (buffet supper with wine - see below)

645pm  (the evening ends at about 830pm)

Tickets may be bought at the door on the night

LONDON

ST OLAVE'S, HART STREET, LONDON, EC3R 7NB

Nearest Tube: Bank or Tower Hill

Buses: 15, 25, 40, 42, 67, 78, 100, 115, 135, 205, 254

 

*SPECIAL REPEAT TO MARK JOINT CELEBRATIONS THIS YEAR OF THE 350TH ANNIVERSARIES OF THE FOUNDING OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND THE BEGINNING OF PEPYS'S DIARY*

PARALLEL LIVES 8 - Pepys and the Royal Society

EXPLORING THE WORLD SHARED BY SAMUEL PEPYS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

with music from Pepys’s time

Catering by Sumo Salad - hot food and salads

NOW BOOKING

Admission: £15 per head (includes hot food, with vegetarian option, and wine).

If you would like to book in advance, make payment out to St Olave Churchwardens and send to: Phil Manning, Church Manager, St Olave Rectory, 8 Hart Street, London EC3R 7NB

Phil Manning may also be contacted at: sanctuaryinthecity@mac.com

Click here for a printable map (new window - Adobe Acrobat is required, which can be downloaded here)

Said of the 2008 series: ". . . so hugely enjoyable. The best value in town."

 

Tickets may be bought at the door on the night

 


Monday 6th December 2010, 615pm (supper with wine) for a 645pm start

                    

         

 The Book You Always Meant to Read

                Dante's Divine Comedy

                                              LECTURE 3

                     Dante's Inferno

                     Cantos XVI-XXII

                                  

  

   the third of fourteen monthly

            supper lectures at St Olave's,

               Hart Street, London EC3

                    (near Tower Hill)                     

                     continuing on the first Monday of every month

                            except January (17th) and May (9th)

                               - no programme in August 2011

black and white illustration from the Inferno by Gustave Dore

More details coming shortly - watch this space

NOW BOOKING - OR BUY AT THE DOOR ON THE NIGHT

Admission: £15 per head (includes hot food, with vegetarian option, and wine).

Catering by Sumo Salad - hot food and salads

If you would like to book in advance, make payment out to St Olave Churchwardens and send to: Phil Manning, Church Manager, St Olave Rectory, 8 Hart Street, London EC3R 7NB

Phil Manning may also be contacted at: sanctuaryinthecity@mac.com

Click here for a printable map (new window - Adobe Acrobat is required, which can be downloaded here)

 


Returning in 2011

 

FLORENCE, ITALY
POETRY PLACES 1 – (dates to be announced)

Milton & Galileo in Florence
A weekend recreating Galileo's life and work in Florence and the atmosphere in the city leading up to the moment when the young John Milton came to visit him under house arrest here in 1638, and the impact it had on his poetry, notably Paradise Lost - with specially arranged access to Galileo's own notebooks in the Florence National Library's Galileo archive and to his villa overlooking the city, a visit to the Galileo collection (including his two surviving handmade telescopes) in the Museum of the History of Science, and a walk into the hills retracing Galileo's footsteps. Information will be available about flights and accommodation.

Comments from students on the first Milton and Galileo weekend
"It was a truly wonder-filled trip, and I'm very grateful to you for organising it."
Vishal Pathak

"Thank you for our wonderful visit to Florence. The people and times we were thinking about - 1638 and all that - still feel very vivid and tangible. I've been catching up on Dava Sobell's book, recognising Galileo's houses as they crop up in the book, how they look now, and remembering the views you can see from there. I've been trying to tell people about what we did. It was breathtaking to be able to see Galileo's manuscripts and his drawings of the moon with our group in the back room of the library . . . "
Lucy Moy-Thomas

"I would like to add how much Neil and I enjoyed the week-end in Florence. Neil has waxed lyrical over the firm's intranet."
Frances Spurrier

Enquiries to: 020 7405 3997 or grahamkfawcett@gmail.com


Returning in 2012

RECANATI (NEAR ANCONA), ITALY
POETRY PLACES 4
– (dates to be announced)

Giacomo Leopardi weekend
Within sight of the Adriatic in the lovely medieval hill-town where Leopardi was born and lived nearly all of his life, a weekend in which to enjoy the poems of Leopardi where they were written and set, and to reflect on the challenges involved in translating him. There will be specially arranged visits to Palazzo Leopardi where the Leopardi family still live and to the Centre for Leopardi Studies, both of which also offer excellent exhibitions on the poet's life and works.

Comments from students on the first Giacomo Leopardi in Recanati weekend:

Thank you very much indeed for such an interesting and enriching Recanati visit. A real pleasure.

Madeleine David

 

I very much enjoyed the Recanati session. I feel that I know Leopardi, the man, much more now after your talks and that wonderful introduction to the libraries we were given, and when I wander round the town in the future (usually on Sunday mornings to browse round the antique/junk market ) I'll have a stronger and even more distinct impression of Leopardi's presence.  It should also send me back to his poetry.

Caroline Maldonado

 

I wanted to say a big thank you for a great weekend. I learned a lot and am grateful for how much you gave to all of us of your time and enthusiasm. I also really valued the time to reflect away from the pressures, and that has been a bonus for me!

Contented participant


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