By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Sheep in Fog’ is a poem by Sylvia Plath (1932-63), which was published in her posthumous second collection Ariel in 1965. For my money, it’s one of Plath’s finest poems, if not the finest. But it’s also a poem which conveys much by using very few words: unlike the transitional poems she wrote in 1961 – ‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’ springs to mind – ‘Sheep in Fog’ reflects a more pared-back, controlled, and focused style.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What connects the word ‘female’ with ‘male’, etymologically speaking? How did these corresponding terms come about? The origins of the word ‘female’ are worthy of further inspection, because, as ever on this blog, there are some surprising facts to uncover in the etymology and history of ‘female’.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Triumphs of a Taxidermist’ is a short story by H. G. Wells (1866-1946), originally published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1894. This year was something of an annus mirabilis for Wells’s fiction: The Time Machine, his first novel, was only a year away, and he published many of his best short stories in 1894. This is one of the shortest – and lightest.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
In 1592, the brightest new star of the London theatre scene was on the receiving end of a rather harsh review:
Yes trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
In Reacher Said Nothing, his account of following bestselling thriller author Lee Child around while Child writes one of his Jack Reacher novels, the academic and author Andy Martin reveals that Child (with his daughter) was working on a script for a TV pilot in which a forensic linguist solves crimes by focusing on verbal and linguistic clues.