Spenser and Europe: Britomart after Brexit

No abstract available

Far distant, far distant: Orwell, my father & Catalonia

Reflections on the current situation in Catalonia with reference to George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and James Maley's experiences with the International Brigades in 1937, dramatized in the play, From the Calton to Catalonia, by John & Willy Maley

The right woman for the job? Muriel Spark’s ‘The Only Problem’

No abstract available

Muriel Spark and Africa

Muriel Spark’s centenary year has offered opportunities to explore elements of her writing that deserve wider attention. Her time in Africa is vital in this respect. An exhibition at the National Library of Scotland reveals aspects of Spark’s sojourn in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa (https://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/muriel-spark/Africa); critic Eleanor Byrne has begun to map out the impact of time there on her work (https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2017/11/go-away-bird-muriel-spark-southern-rhodesia/?print=print); and one of the fruits of the Muriel Spark 100 celebrations is a new book by writer Shane Strachan linking Spark’s African experiences with Scotland (http://www.shanestrachan.com/blog/2018/10/20/nevertheless-muriel-spark-in-bulawayo-murielspark100). Here, with a view to contributing to the discussion around Scotland’s colonial past, I want to look at the afterlife of Africa in Spark’s writings beyond the poems and stories that expressly draw on her experience of that continent

Scotland shouldn’t rush second indyref – that’s Ireland’s bitter lesson

No abstract available

Adjustable hinge permits movement of knee in plaster cast

Metal knee hinge with an adjustable sleeve worn on the outside of a leg cast facilitates movement of the knee joint. This helps eliminate stiffness of the knee and eliminates bulkiness and adjustment difficulty

'Is this the Region … that we must change for heav'n?': Milton on the margins

No abstract available

The fortunes of Arthur: Malory to Milton

This chapter follows the fortunes of Arthur as a figure contested and celebrated in equal measure between Malory's Morte Darthur (1485), and Milton's History of Britain (1670). Malory depicted the French wars under the guise of Arthur's sixth-century campaign against Rome, and Arthur was key to medieval and Renaissance representations of sovereignty and resistance. One critical view suggests that by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Arthur became an inconvenient myth, retaining poetic and propagandistic potential but scoffed at by serious scholars. The Reformation and the rise of antiquarianism engendered suspicion of medieval sources, and Arthur and Brutus were undone by the rise of Anglo-Saxon studies. Yet Arthur maintained momentum even as myth morphed from history to poetry, and writers such as Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare still found purchase in the legend. Looked at closely, Milton's disparaging of Arthur appears less absolute, refashioning as it does Malory's Arthurian political allegory

"And thence as far as Archipelago": mapping Marlowe’s "British shore"

No abstract available

Commemorating Connolly: contexts, comparisons and Celtic connections

No abstract available