Sophie Duncan introduces Oscar Wilde by setting him in an accurate historical context. She then moves on to consider the revolutionary aspects of his four plays Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Great Writers Inspire

Oscar Wilde's Women

Alex Pryce considers how writers are readers, influenced and inspired by the works of other writers. Taking as a starting point the literary afterlife of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and the influence of Romantic John Keats on the First World War Poet Wilfred Owen, Alex discusses how writers are challenged by precursory writers, and introduces some theories of influence from T.S. Eliot and Harold Bloom.

Great Writers Inspire Great Writing

Dr Julian Thompson considers a writer described by Kingsley Amis as 'our greatest writer of short stories'. In this discussion of Rudyard Kipling, Julian acknowledges Kipling's lack popularity with readers, but argues for the greatness of short stories from across his ouvre and positions them as precursors to modernism.

Julian Thompson on Rudyard Kipling

Dr Julian Thompson introduces 'the least read great writer in our literature'. He describes the popularly of Walter Scott in his own time and suggests some highlights of the 'living Scots' of his fiction.

Julian Thompson on Sir Walter Scott

Linda Gates, Professor of Voice at Northwestern University (USA) discusses how Shakespeare's poetry and plays lend themselves to vocal performance by discussing how breath can be used to 'punctuate the thought'.

Shakespeare and Voice

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, draws on her experience as a trustee of the Booker Prize and as a judge for many other literary prizes to offer a response to the question, 'What is a Classic?'.

What is a Classic? English Graduate Conference 2012 Panel Debate, Talk 3

Judith Luna, the Senior Commissioning Editor at Oxford World's Classics, draws on her practical involvement in re-launching the Oxford World's Classics series in 2008 to give a publisher's take on the question, 'What is a Classic?'.

What is a Classic? English Graduate Conference 2012 Panel Debate, Talk 2

Dr Ankhi Mukherjee, Wadham college, Oxford, speaks to the question 'What is a Classic?' by examining the residual influence of the Eurocentric literary canon in the age of world literature and emergent formations of canons and classics.

What is a Classic? English Graduate Conference 2012 Panel Debate, Talk 1

Professor Jon Mee, University of Warwick, discusses how Dickens's fiction can be considered 'cinematic' by drawing attention to the shifting points of view in Oliver Twist, Our Mutual Friend, and other novels. He relates this to work done in recent and historical adaptations of Dickens's work.

Dickens's Points of View

Professor Kathyrn Sutherland from the University of Oxford talks around the manuscripts of Jane Austen, what we can learn from them about her family life but also her writing style and techniques.

Jane Austen's Manuscripts Explored

Professor Kathryn Sutherland from the University of Oxford talks about some of Jane Austen's manuscripts from the novel "The Watsons" and what we can learn about her from these.

The Watsons: Jane Austen Practising

In this panel discussion from the Great Writers Inspire Engage Event workshop, Dr Seamus Perry, Dr Margaret Kean, Professor Peter McDonald and Dr Ankhi Mukherjee discuss what we mean when we talk about greatness in writing. Seamus Perry chooses Samuel Taylor Coleridge, inspired as he is by the 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and its myriad possible interpretations. Margaret Kean chooses John Milton, who used his Paradise Lost to position himself in the canon of great writers during his lifetime. Peter McDonald talks about who decides who is considered to be a great writer, suggesting literary agents, prize judges, editors, reviewers, critics, librarians, and ordinary readers. Finally, Ankhi Mukherjee discusses the greatness of V S Naipul, who was critical of the existing literary canon and so set out to create his own kind of great literature.

What is a Great Writer? An academic panel discusses the question.

Dr. Julian Thompson considers how Wilkie Collins's fiction was pioneering across a variety of genres, including detective fiction and gothic thrillers. He also considers Collins's progressive political outlook, picks out his 'great' work, and indicates how Collins may have influenced Charles Dickens.

Julian Thompson on Wilkie Collins

Professor Daniel Wakelin discusses the work of Chaucer and explains how he was one of the first to use everyday spoken English as a literary language in the 14th Century.

Chaucer

Dr Rebecca Beasley explains why we should read Pound, someone she considers as the central figure in early 20th Century poetry movements. In this podcast, Rebecca Beasley talks about a poem that Pound published in Blast, the magazine of the vorticist movement -- which Pound joined in 1914. Vorticism was mainly a visual arts movement, founded by Percy Wyndham Lewis. Blast is available on the Modernist Journals Project website with certain usage restrictions: the poem discussed, Et Faim Sallir le Loup des Boys, is on page 22 of Blast, volume 2 (War Number). Looking up the poem's title in a search engine should bring it up easily. Because we don't want to infringe copyright, the poem is not quoted, so you might want to read it before listening.

Ezra Pound

From Dickens to Shakespeare, from Chaucer to Kipling and from Austen to Blake, this significant collection contains inspirational short talks freely available to the public and the education community worldwide. This series is aimed primarily at first year undergraduates but will be of interest to school students preparing for university and anyone who would like to know more about the world's great writers. The talks were produced as part of the Great Writers Inspire Project which makes a significant body of material freely available on the subject of great works of literature and their authors. Visit http://writersinspire.org/ to see how great writers can inspire you

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Great Writers Inspire

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