Department of English, NCCU

Title: Romantic Poetry: An EARN Forum

Speaker: Yu-Hung Tien (with Pauline Hortolland, Laura Brook and Charlotte Evans via SKYPE)

Chair: Dr Hsu, Li-hsin (English Department, NCCU)  

Time: 2.10 pm - 5.00 pm, Monday, 10 May 2021

Venue: Research Building Rm 250203

Speaker bios / Abstracts:

1. Yu-Hung Tien earned a Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from National Chengchi University, Taiwan, and a Master’s degree in Romantic and Victorian Literary Studies from the University of Durham, UK. His research interests include the English Romantic poet John Keats, the reception of Keats, transatlantic literary exchanges, and global Romanticism. 

Abstract: In the first section of my talk, I will be reviewing one of the most important poets—Emily Dickinson—who not only inspired my passion for literature, but my desire for conducting literary research. As a recluse who has been seen by critics like Richard Gravil as a literary “recycler”, Dickinson’s views of her relationships with other authors, or her interpretations of the role of poet in general have drawn my attention. I will then turn to some letters by Dickinson where she discussed her “readings”, and some poems by her such as “I reckon – When I count at all –” where she expressed her admiration for poet. In the second section, I will briefly talk about how my research interests develop from particular poets into the field of “reception studies”. I will also touch upon the ways in which I expand my Master’s dissertation, which explored Dickinson’s reception of Keats, into my PhD project, where I will be re-evaluating, more comprehensively, Keats’s reception in America. 

2. Pauline Hortolland is the 1st year PhD student at Université de Paris. The provisional title of her thesis is “Ineffectual Angel”?: Percy Shelley and the Event of Poetry

Abstract: Pauline will provide a general / easy approach to Shelley, discussing why she is attracted to the poet, and then using "Ode to the West Wind" as an example to elaborate on the definition of lyric poetry. She will then move onto her own research project, explaining the historical context and conceptual framework of her research. 

3. Laura Brook graduated from her undergraduate degree in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh in 2017 with First Class Honours, completing her dissertation on the representation of mortality in the works of John Keats. In 2020, she received a Distinction for her Master’s degree in English Literary Studies at Durham University, after completing her thesis on trauma in women’s Great War writing. Laura is now working towards a PhD in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, exploring the representation of patienthood in the works and letters of John Keats.

Abstract: This presentation will look at one of Keats’s last poems - ‘This living hand, now warm and capable’ – and contextualise it within Keats’s experience as both a medical professional and one of England’s most famous patients. Through a detailed close reading of this poem, we will explore how Keats moved away from more conventional poetic forms in order to fully express his complex relationship with his own mortality and his guilt following the death of his brother. Finally, we will discuss how previous approaches to Keats and medicine focus largely on his time as a medical student, and what can be gained by decentring that authority in favour of a patient-led approach.

4. Charlotte Evans is a third-year PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, U.K. Her thesis will be entitled ‘’Among the English Poets’: John Keats and Early Modern Literature’ and considers how and why the English Romantic poet John Keats was influenced by minor and major figures from the early modern period and how Keats’s sense of the English canon differed from modern conceptions.

Abstract: I use Keats’s letters, poems and marginalia to bring together all of the early modern authors he read and was inspired by in order to build up a picture of what the ‘early modern period’ as we now know it looked like to Keats, both as an individual and as a Romantic poet. My research will contribute to critical discussions about marginalia, the act of reading, and literary influence during the Romantic period and throughout history. I will also introduce another 19^th century poet. Along with Shelley and Keats, George Gordon Lord Byron – known as Lord Byron – is now known as one of the foremost ‘second generation’ Romantic poets.