“With that he stripped him to the ivory skin,

And crying, ‘Love, I come,’ leapt lively in.”

At the time of his violent and mysterious death in 1593, Christopher Marlowe left unfinished a long narrative poem based on the Greek myth of Hero and Leander. The story tells of two lovers separated by the waters of the Hellespont. Nightly, Leander swims across the sea to “dally” with his beloved. Yet, one night, things do not go as he had planned.

In this one-off Salon we will undertake a close reading of about forty lines of Marlowe’s poem. We will take up the story where Leander leaps into the Hellespont, but on the night when, rather than reaching the further shore, he attracts the attention of the sea god, Neptune . . .

In this poem Marlowe showcases the poetic form, the deceptively simple rhyming couplets, which (in the words of David Riggs, Marlowe’s biographer) reproduced in English “the elegance and wit of Ovid’s love poetry”. We will read and re-read these forty lines, examining the linguistic virtuosity and rhetorical skill which Marlowe employs to dazzling effect, to capture those moments when powerful divinity meets frail humanity, when the beauty of corporeal movement blends with erotic desire in the depths of the ocean. Together we will try to tease out what makes these lines some of the most sensual and playful in English verse, while not neglecting the poem’s unsettling undercurrents in which a mighty hunter ensnares his vulnerable prey.

“Leander strived, the waves about him wound,

And pulled him to the bottom, where the ground

Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves

Sweet singing mermaids sported with their loves…”

JOINING DETAILS:

• Single-session study, live on Zoom, led by Tim Swinglehurst
• Tuesday 24 November, 6.00-8.00pm (UK time)
• Tim will provide participants with the relevant text
• £35.00 for two-hour meeting

“This kyng lay at Camylot upon Cristmasse,
With rich revel aright and rechlesse mirthes.”

It was Christmas at Camelot and the long fifteen-day celebrations of feasting, dancing and playing games were in full swing at the court of King Arthur when suddenly, at new year, a mysterious knight (“overal enker grene” – entirely vivid green) appears. The stranger issues a challenge to the king’s knights: he will withstand any blow from any knight, provided that in a year and a day’s time the Green Knight may return the blow. When Sir Gawain takes up this challenge and strikes off the Green Knight’s head, he unleashes a series of events which threaten not only his knighthood and the raison d’être of Arthur’s court but disturb his understanding of himself and the world he inhabits.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a perfect read for the winter season, as Gawain sets off at in November to seek out the Green Knight and receive the return-blow. He travels through snow-bound landscapes, where cold streams come clattering down from cliff-tops and hang high above his head in hard icicles, and un-blithe birds upon bare twigs piteously pipe at the pain of the cold, a cold which the poet counterpoints with the warmth of hospitality and festivity celebrated in the castle where Gawain finds rest over Christmas before his final confrontation with the Green Knight.

On the surface, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight appears to be a simple story of magic and adventure, but it is recognised as a great masterpiece of medieval literature, exhibiting keen and subtle psychological depth, and displaying rich and intricate literary artistry. Join us to journey with Gawain as he navigates the cold of winter, the otherness of the Green Knight and his other-worlds, and the complexities of medieval courtly love and fidelity.

The medieval English dialect of the poem is not straightforward. For this study we will be using the acclaimed translation into modern English by poet laureate Simon Armitage, with occasional forays into the original Middle English. The recommended edition is Simon Armitage, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Faber & Faber, 2007. ISBN 978-0-571-22328-2.

JOINING DETAILS:

• Four meeting study led by Tim Swinglehurst live on Zoom
• Wednesday 25 November, 2, 9 &16 December, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK time)
• £160 for four meetings, to include background materials and resources
• Recommended edition: Simon Armitage, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Faber & Faber, 2007, ISBN 978-0-571-22328-2.

If you have visited the current exhibition of The Bayeux Tapestry and been drawn to explore more of the world of battles and betrayals, you may want to consider joining this reading of a work of medieval literature believed to have been created some hundred years later.

The Nibelungenlied is a medieval epic poem of love, betrayal and revenge, and a major source text for Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Some have called The Nibelungenlied the German Iliad, because it explores honour and kinship along with the brutalities of war. As The Reader’s Companion to World Literature says, “the characters are boldly drawn, larger-than-life figures moved by the fundamental passions of love, hate, loyalty, power, and greed.”  At the centre of the story is the hero Siegfried and his murder. This takes place in Part I, while Part II is devoted to Siegfried’s wife Kriemhild’s brutal revenge on her family. 

First we will discuss The Nibelungenlied as a work of literature. Then we will consider how Wagner adapted it for his libretto for The Ring. This study is part of our 2027 Wagner series, but you can sign up to for The Nibelungenlied without attending the other Wagner offerings. 

JOINING DETAILS:

• Five-meeting study led by Sean Forester, live on Zoom
• Sundays 7, 14, 21, 28 February & 7 March 2027, 5.45-7.45 pm (UK time) 
• £200 for five meetings
• Relevant books: The Nibelungenlied translated by A.T. Hatto (Penguin Classics); The Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner, translated by John Deathridge (Penguin Classics).