The country house has fascinated writers and readers for over 450 years, attracting the attention of celebrated writers like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and providing a setting for the performance of literature for writers such as William Shakespeare. We’ll be tracing the history of country house literature, from the sixteenth and seventeenth-century poetry and drama of Thomas More and Margaret Cavendish, through the polite satire and sociability of the eighteenth-century, the Gothic terror and intrigue of Ann Radcliffe and Charles Dickens, all the way through to the dawn of the twentieth century and the wit of Oscar Wilde.
As well as reading extracts from the novels, poetry and drama of these well-known authors, we’ll be exploring lesser known forms and less familiar authors. You’ll encounter manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals and magazines, as well as private poetry and published letters.
We’ll be joined by experts from the University of Sheffield’s School of English who will share with us the approaches that they take in their own research and what else we can use to build a literary interpretation. You’ll be able to think about and discuss the wide variety of ways country house literature has been composed, consumed and received over the centuries.