From the mysterious Green Knight picking up his own just-chopped-off head at the start of the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, to narrator Saleem Sinai’s enormous ever-dripping telepathic nose in Salman Rushdie’s 1981 novel Midnight’s children, magical beliefs and practices have been depicted and discussed in literature in English from the Middle Ages to the present day. Some writers have even thought of their own writing as a form of magic or become practising magicians: for instance, W.B. Yeats was for many years a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This lecture series will examine the role of magic in the work and lives of various writers through the ages.

Course co-ordinator

Tom Walker, Assistant Professor

How to apply

Apply to: The Secretary (Evening Lectures), Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing, 21 Westland Row, Trinity College, Dublin 2. Phone: 01 896 2885, email: oscar@tcd.ie. Application forms will be on our website (from 30 November 2012): http://www.tcd.ie/OWC/news/.

Fee

The cost for the full series will be €50 or €6 for individual lectures. Concession rate for the full series will be €35 or €5 for individual lectures.

Date, time and place

Lectures will take place on Tuesday evenings of Hilary term at 7.30 p.m., from 15 January 2013 to 12 March 2013, in the Davis Theatre, Arts Building, Trinity College, Dublin 2.