Literature
We offer a wide range of literature courses at City Lit. From contemporary & classical literature, and novels to short stories, as well as our popular reading groups, you will find a course to suit your literary needs.
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Women writers: shaping the American literary landscape
Course Date: Thu 27 Sep 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetDiscover intriguing seminal works by four influential American writers of the 20th century: Zora Neale Hurston ('Sweat', 1926), Mary McCarthy (The Company She Keeps, 1942), Joan Didion (Play it as it Lays, 1970) and Elizabeth Hardwick (Sleepless Nights, 1979).Full fee: £119.00Senior fee: £119.00Concession: £52.00 -
The poetry of Keats: a literary workshop
Course Date: Sat 29 Sep 2018 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: OS - Off SiteRead and discuss some of Keats' poetry in the location in which many of them were written. Explore 'The Odes' and 'The Eve of St. Agnes'. The course takes place at Keats House and is led by literature tutor Jenny Baynes.Full fee: £39.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £39.00 -
Don Quixote for the 21st century: the first road novel
Course Date: Sat 6 Oct 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetExplore key moments of Cervantes's book in order to understand why is it considered to be the first modern novel.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
Love and desire in Shakespeare
Course Date: Sun 14 Oct 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetExplore how Shakespeare presents the delights and difficulties of love and desire in a range of plays, and in so doing consider the practical contemporary significance of his insights.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
Dubliners: a taste of James Joyce through two short stories
Course Date: Sat 27 Oct 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetDip into James Joyce in a dynamic one-day course with two selections from Dubliners. We will consider the nature of paralysis and epiphany in ‘Two Sisters’ and ‘The Dead’. Please read these in preparation.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
Monstrous marvels of the Medieval literary imagination
Course Date: Sun 28 Oct 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetMedieval literature is full of strange creatures, some of which were believed to exist at the edge of the known world. This course explores the representation of the monstrous in some manuscripts of the medieval period.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
Short story reading group: classics to contemporary
Course Date: Mon 29 Oct 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetJoin us in sharing feelings about, and reactions to, a selection of classic and contemporary short stories. Please come to the first session having read Guy De Maupassant’s ‘The Necklace’ and Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Good Country People’ (supplied by the tutor). Meetings on 29 Oct, 3 December, 4 Feb, 11 March, 13 May and 24 June.Full fee: £109.00Senior fee: £87.00Concession: £48.00 -
An introduction to poetry
Course Date: Sat 3 Nov 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetAlways wanted to read and discuss poetry? Enjoy this introduction to a range of poetry from the last 400 years and explore how the poets shape our responses.Full fee: £29.00Senior fee: £23.00Concession: £15.00 -
Clothes make the woman: a sartorial history of women in the 20th century
Course Date: Sat 17 Nov 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetDid you know that ready-made clothes were initially disparaged on moral grounds, that Amy Johnson was dressed by Schiaparelli, and that some 1960s’ employers introduced ‘modesty boards’ for mini-skirted staff? Come and find out more.Full fee: £39.00Senior fee: £31.00Concession: £20.00 -
Faith and doubt in Victorian poetry
Course Date: Sun 18 Nov 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetVictorian Britain saw an upsurge of religious affirmation in the context of profound unease concerning the assertions of faith. We shall consider how the work of the age’s most accomplished poets expresses that paradox.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
A voice from Europe: the legacy of John Berger - novelist, critic, art historian
Course Date: Sat 24 Nov 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetDiscover Berger's half a century of writing in every conceivable genre on literature, art, creativity and many of the intractable issues facing the world today, including “To the Wedding”, “The Seventh Man”, and “The Red Tenda of Bologna”.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
Literary Evening Lecture: David Constantine - What my poetry owes to translation
Course Date: Fri 30 Nov 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetCome and join us for a stimulating evening of lecture and discussion at our November Literary Evening Lecture, where the writer and translator David Constantine will read from his poetry. He will also talk about how translating from foreign languages has helped him in his own writing. The evening will includes a more general discussion of the need for translation in the making of any nation's poetic language.Full fee: £9.00Senior fee: £9.00Concession: £9.00 -
Literature taster
Course Date: Sat 12 Jan 2019 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetDo you want to find out how to go about understanding a poem or how to do a close reading of a work of fiction? Come and find out what makes a literature class at City Lit so special.Full fee: £19.00Senior fee: £19.00Concession: £10.00 -
Classic drama
Course Date: Mon 14 Jan 2019
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetRead view and discuss three classic plays: Antigone by Sophocles, Richard II by Shakespeare and Hedda Gabler by Ibsen in terms of themes, language, political, social and historical contexts and how they work as performance texts.Full fee: £199.00Senior fee: £159.00Concession: £88.00 -
An introduction to literature: drama
Course Date: Mon 14 Jan 2019 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetRead and discuss plays including 'Much Ado About Nothing' by William Shakespeare and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tenessee Williams, in terms of language, characterisation, ideas , structure and how they work as performance texts.Full fee: £179.00Senior fee: £179.00Concession: £79.00