It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything. We’ve had many visitors, two trips to London,
and lots of planning activities both for the Principia Lifelong Learning trip
coming up this June and the Principia England Abroad for 2014. And, oh yes, some research! But before I get
into those activities, I have a real treat.
Katie Stanley, our good friend and professional photographer for
Principia College, came to visit us last week.
Katie took some wonderful photos (mostly of sheep), which I
am pleased to share with you. Thank you, Katie, for the great shots.
This week, Chrissy Steele arrived from Principia
College. Chrissy leads the England
Abroad with me and resident counselor Caleb King. We’ve done two together,
and this next one we plan to spend a full week in the Lake District. What a perfect place for orientation to
English culture and team building!
Everyone we met at local hostels and cultural sites were so
helpful. Rachel Litten at Brantwood (Ruskin’s
last home and a real gem) opened our eyes to what can be done there, and even
though I thought I knew all that the Wordsworth Trust could provide, Kate
Hollier gave us even more to add to our list! We also had a delightful lunch with Melissa and Laurence Harwood. Melissa teaches movement, and we discussed how she might help us with the team building aspects of the week. And Laurence told us wonderful stories about his godfather, C. S. Lewis. I can't wait to read his book, C. S. Lewis, My Godfather. The students who take part in 2014 will have a rich experience here, and
we can’t wait.
The research has been going well if slowly. I continue to learn about libraries and book
clubs in Wordsworth’s day. Two full days
in the British Library during one of our recent trips to London found me
pouring over subscription and circulating library catalogs to see if anyone was
buying The Excursion just after it
was published, and if not (and the answer is mostly that they were not), what
they were buying. A short but not
complete definition of the difference between subscription libraries and
circulating libraries is that subscription libraries were libraries formed by
individuals who were pooling their resources to be able to buy and enjoy books;
circulating libraries were operated by booksellers who were trying to increase
and supplement their sales. I’ve had
such fun that I think I am going to introduce my Romantics class to these
catalogs, some of which are available electronically, to get them to think
about the difference between what was popular and what has entered the canon of
British literature (see David Allan's very informative book, A Nation of Readers). Many, many books
were published each year, and most of them we have not heard of and do not
read. Even among the authors we do read,
we generally only study a portion of what readers then would have
devoured. Byron is perhaps the best
example. By 1860, Sam’s Subscription
Library (which was really a circulating library in London) carried 21 titles by
Byron. These lists are a clear reminder
of how important reading was to this age.
It was, after all, the only form of daily entertainment. As Sally Bushell has pointed out in her
excellent book Rereading the Excursion, people didn’t just read a work
once. They read it, then read it aloud
to family, and then often read it again to themselves. As the letters show that I have been reading,
much conversation centered around what one had recently read.
At any rate, it’s been a great and very full last few
weeks. Here are a few photos from some
rambles and planning trips.
The YHA in Keswick. I remember falling asleep to the sound of the river when our last abroad stayed here. |
The inside of one of the many hostels we looked at. Ambleside perhaps? At any rate, it gives one a sense of the accommodations. |
Lambs love to climb rocks. |
Chrissy and Chris on the coffin trail between Rydal and Dove Cottage. |
Dove Cottage. |
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