Professor John Williams
Courses
Literature, Culture, and Criticism
Culture, Theory and Context: Poetry
English Literature & Art 1600-1789: National Identity and the Ideal of Classicism
Senior Lecturer in English
Recent Publications
Tel: 020 8331 8961
Email: j.r.williams@gre.ac.uk
Office: King William 225
Office Hours
Tuesday 3-4pm (Level 1)
Wednesday 10-11am (Level 2)
Thursday 12-1pm & 2-3pm (Level 2)
Friday 1-2pm (Level 3) & 4-5pm (Level 3 Dissertation)
Research Interests
British Romanticism, Literature and Art 1760-1840
William Wordsworth
The reception of Wordsworth's poetry in 19th century Germany.
Wordsworth: Romantic Poetry and Revolutionary Politics, Manchester University Press 1989
William Wordsworth: Contemporary Critical Essays (edit.), in the New Casebook series, Macmillan 1993.
'Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" in context: Gender, Art and Romanticism' in News From Nowhere, No.1, Spring 1995
William Wordsworth: A Literary Life, Macmillan 1996
Mary Shelley: A Literary Life, Palgrave 2000
'Displacing Romanticism: Anna Seward, Joseph Weston, and the Unschooled Sons of Genius', in Placing and Displacing Romanticism, edited by Peter Kitson, Ashgate 2002
William Wordsworth: Critical Issues, Palgrave 2002
'England's Nelson and Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior": a case of cautious dissent, in Romanticism issue 11.2, 2005
Publications 2007
'The Translation of Wordsworth into the Political and Social Conflicts of Nineteenth Century Germany', in Translation and Interpreting Conflict, edited by Myriam Salama-Carr, Rodopi Press
'Gothic in Britain 1764-1837', in The Routledge Companion to Gothic, edited by Emma McEvoy and Catherine Spooner, Routledge
Courses
Level One: 'Literature, Culture, and Criticism'. A study of 19th and 20th century texts and theoretical approaches. LCC is a course in text and theory, in which John Williams explores the relationships between visual and literary texts, with particular reference to Romantic Period art in relation to themes in Mary Shelley's novel of 1818, 'Frankenstein'.
Level Two: 'CTC: Poetry'. Primarily British poetry from the Romantic period to the present.
Level Two: 'English Literature and Art 1600-1789: Classicism and Culture'. This course is rooted in the development of the site now occupied by the Old Royal Naval College and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Key texts include Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, John Dryden’s `classicised` version of the same drama, All For Love, and Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Artists studied include Claude Lorraine, Hogarth, Gainsborough, and Joseph Wright of
Derby.
Level Three: 'Romanticism and the Canon'. British Romanticism in literature and visual art and the establishment of a 'canon'. This course considers the development of a critical tradition around Romanticism and looks beyond the Canon for its sources. This includes a consideration of a broader view of the period in a European context. Visual art studied includes work by Henry Fuseli, John Constable, and J.W.M. Turner.
Post graduate teaching: MPhil/ PhD supervision in Romantic Period Studies, MA by Research in Literature, MA Literary London.