Literature
We offer a wide range of literature courses at Build. From contemporary & classical literature, and novels to short stories, as well as our popular reading groups, you will find a course to suit your literary needs.
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The art of the sonnet from the Renaissance to European Modernism
Course Date: Wed 6 Jun 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetShakespeare's is the most celebrated of all sonnet cycles, but the form itself has been integral to Western lyric poetry for nearly eight centuries. Explore works by Petrarch, Shakespeare, Donne, Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna and Rilke.Full fee: £79.00Senior fee: £79.00Concession: £35.00 -
Suffragette: the making of a movement
Course Date: Sat 9 Jun 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetSuffragettes employed militant tactics to fight for votes for women. We will study stories and plays by suffragette writers to consider how they used literature and the performing arts to rally support for the movement.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
A very wicked place: representations of London in Dickens' later novels
Course Date: Sat 23 Jun 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetIn Dickens’s novels London often takes on the force of a character. Augmented by visits (Dickens Museum and the Temple), we shall explore precisely how he expressed his endless fascination with the greatest nineteenth-century metropolis. NB. Course fees include the entrance fee to the Dickens' museum.Full fee: £89.00Senior fee: £89.00Concession: £54.00 -
Play in a day: Antony and Cleopatra
Course Date: Sat 23 Jun 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetRead or seen the play but want to know more? This course examines the background to Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra', discusses characters, identifies themes, draws parallels with Shakespeare's other plays, looks at language and analyses key scenes. T.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
How Conrad changed fiction: facing the self in remote places
Course Date: Sat 30 Jun 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetExplore how Conrad’s stories changed the way we read fiction by placing characters in extreme circumstances and raising doubts about whether it’s possible really to know someone, using unreliable accounts, time shifts and multiple ironies.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
The fiction of Raymond Carver
Course Date: Tue 17 Jul 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetExplore some of the stories of Raymond Carver to discover how, as the Guardian stated, ‘with or without minimalist editing, the humanity of Raymond Carver's storytelling puts him in the same league as Chekhov.’.Full fee: £39.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £17.00 -
The Queen of Calvary: Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop and Stevie Smith
Course Date: Thu 19 Jul 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetExplore these poets’ originality, including their distinctive humour, which marked out their emotional and stylistic space in a poetry world dominated by men; with two brilliant young British women poets who have learned from them.Full fee: £59.00Senior fee: £59.00Concession: £26.00 -
Understanding poetry
Course Date: Thu 19 Jul 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetFrom Shakespeare and Milton to Ezra Pound and Frank O'Hara, what makes different types of poetry tick, and how can we gain the confidence to read them perceptively and with real enjoyment?Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £22.00 -
Tennessee Williams: master of American drama
Course Date: Tue 24 Jul 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetThe plays of Tennessee Williams exert a lyrical and forceful energy that has influenced American drama, from the 1940s to the present day. This introduction to his work explores his poetic language and expressionist use of theatre in classic plays including 'The Glass Menagerie' and 'A Streetcar named Desire'.Full fee: £39.00Senior fee: £31.00Concession: £17.00 -
English poetry in the age of Napoleon
Course Date: Thu 26 Jul 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetThe hopes and fears of this revolutionary era were reflected in the poetry of the leading Romantics, including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley. We shall consider – in context – a representative selection of their work.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £22.00 -
Italian weekend: "...and sinking is sweet in such a sea": parallels in the Romantic lyricism of John Keats and Giacomo Leopardi
Course Date: Sat 28 Jul 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetGiacomo Leopardi and John Keats were almost contemporary and never met, but there are striking similarities in the content and style of their poems. Come and read and discuss some of their most important works.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £25.00 -
Divided city: Berlin in Cold War fiction
Course Date: Tue 31 Jul 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetCome and discover how the Wall and other atmospheric Berlin locations distilled Cold War tensions in le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), Deighton’s Funeral in Berlin (1964), and Fleming’s The Living Daylights (1966).Full fee: £69.00Senior fee: £69.00Concession: £30.00 -
Wordsworth and Coleridge: the transcendent art
Course Date: Thu 2 Aug 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetThe collaboration of Wordsworth and Coleridge revolutionised poetry. We shall consider how they present all life as potentially inspiring, above and beyond the reductive, materialistic outlook that was gaining currency during the industrial revolution.Full fee: £49.00Senior fee: £39.00Concession: £22.00 -
The pentangle on the shield: King Arthur in medieval literature
Course Date: Sat 4 Aug 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetThe legend of King Arthur and his knights is one of the great European literary traditions. This course considers the development of the legend in medieval literature, from the earliest allusions to the 15th century.Full fee: £89.00Senior fee: £71.00Concession: £45.00 -
Shakespeare: a dip into some key tragedies, comedies and histories
Course Date: Mon 6 Aug 2018
Location on this date: KS - Keeley StreetCelebrate the genius of Shakespeare: his timeless themes, complex characterisation, beautiful language and power in performance. Explore extracts from plays including 'Hamlet', 'Othello, Richard III', 'Twelfth Night' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.Full fee: £129.00Senior fee: £103.00Concession: £57.00