Literature Courses in London
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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19th Century American visionaries
Course Date: Sun 26 Jan 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetExplore the key works of writers who together created American literary modernity out of the most disparate of backgrounds, beliefs and passions, reinventing the novel, epic and lyric poetry in their search for forms expressive of the entire human adventure, its heroic restlessness and its private terrors.Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £47.00Concession: £30.00 -
An introduction to poetry: John Donne and Shakespeare's sonnets
Course Date: Sun 26 Jan 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetYou will read ,discuss and enjoy a selection of poetry by John Donne and William Shakespeare.Full fee: £29.00Senior fee: £23.00Concession: £15.00 -
Contemporary international fiction
Course Date: Tue 11 Feb 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetWhat does the contemporary mean and how can we represent it in fiction? In this course, we seek to broaden our notions of the immediate moment through studying the work of several international authors publishing astonishing fiction. Authors include Elena Ferrante, Sayaka Murata and Han Kang.Full fee: £119.00Senior fee: £119.00Concession: £52.00 -
Hamlet in a day
Course Date: Sat 15 Feb 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetWhy do the language and themes of Hamlet generate such interest and controversy? Through close reading of several of the play’s crucial scenes, we shall compare our own responses to those of famous commentators.Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £47.00Concession: £30.00 -
Literary responses to 9/11: Cormac McCarthy, Mohsin Hamid & Ali Smith
Course Date: Tue 25 Feb 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetThis course explores responses to 9/11 from McCarthy, Hamid, and Smith, covering a range of positions, from that of loss and confusion, to alienation and pleasure, to resistance to the War on Terror measures that followed the terrorist act.Full fee: £119.00Senior fee: £119.00Concession: £52.00 -
Keats' 18th century forebears
Course Date: Sat 29 Feb 2020
Location on this date: OS - Off SiteToo often it is assumed that the Romantic poets engineered a complete break with their eighteenth-century predecessors. By exploring the work of five of Keats’s forebears, this course offers an opportunity to reconsider that assumption.
NB. This course will take place at Keats House, 10 Keats Grove, Hampstead, London. NW3 2RR.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
Diving into the Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys answers Charlotte Bronte
Course Date: Sat 29 Feb 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetIn a close consideration of Rhys’ haunting work, Wide Sargasso Sea, we will consider how systems of power and
history define and subjugate the individual in intimate spaces. Please read the work in preparation for the course.Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £59.00Concession: £26.00 -
Haunting and the uncanny in three gothic novels
Course Date: Sat 14 Mar 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetExplore three key Gothic novels focusing on haunting and uncanny events: Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca, 1938 (Gothic romance); Louise Tondeur, The Water’s Edge , 2003 (haunted seaside hotel narrative); Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger, 2009 (Gothic stately home novel) .Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £47.00Concession: £30.00 -
An introduction to Machiavelli's 'The Prince': "The end does not justify the means"
Course Date: Sat 14 Mar 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetOne of the most poignant ideas that emerged from the Italian Renaissance was the centrality of mankind. This new society, in which man could shape his own destiny, led to a new type of ruler, which is perfectly described in Machiavelli's work.Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £47.00Concession: £30.00 -
Women's lives and literature 100 years ago
Course Date: Sat 21 Mar 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetCelebrate the City Lit’s centenary by looking at diaries and autobiographical writing from 1919-20. Some women could vote, Nancy Astor sat in parliament and all social classes caught the craze for dancing. Was this the start of a new world for women?Full fee: £39.00Senior fee: £31.00Concession: £20.00 -
The Gawain Poet
Course Date: Sun 22 Mar 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetWe know almost nothing about the brilliant poet from North West England who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience. We do know that the quality of his work is parallel to that of Chaucer, his 14th Century contemporary; this course aims to find out how and why.Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £47.00Concession: £30.00 -
Play in a day: Cymbeline
Course Date: Sat 28 Mar 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetRead or seen the play but want to know more? This course examines the background to Shakespeare's 'Cymbeline',
discusses characters, identifies themes, draws parallels with Shakespeare's other plays, looks at language and analyses key scenes.Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £47.00Concession: £30.00 -
Frank O'Hara: standing still and walking in New York
Course Date: Sat 28 Mar 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley Street'Urbane, ironic, celebratory, wildly funny’, Frank O’Hara’s poetry registers the pulse of post-war New York, city of abstract expressionism, modern jazz and innovatory poets, many of whom circled O’Hara’s sun.Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £47.00Concession: £26.00 -
Wit, sex and passion: 17th century English poets
Course Date: Tue 21 Apr 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetEnglish 17th C poetry is characterised by wit and wordplay that still delight. The poems of John Donne are brilliantly ingenious depictions of sexual passion; those of George Herbert moving meditations on religious love; while poems such as To His Coy Mistress tread a fine line between seduction and blackmail.Full fee: £99.00Senior fee: £79.00Concession: £44.00 -
The 21st century novel
Course Date: Wed 22 Apr 2020
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetWhat does it mean to read novels in the 21st century? And why do authors still write them? In this course, we will think about the continuing importance of the novel and look at some examples since the millennium. Authors include J.M. Coetzee, Don DeLillo and Ali Smith.Full fee: £89.00Senior fee: £89.00Concession: £39.00
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