Date: 22 October 2025; 19 November 2025; and 26 November 2025.
Time: 19.30 - 21.00
Location: The Swift Lecture Theatre, Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin.
Admission is free.
'The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth'
Michaelmas Term Schedule:
- 22 October 2025: ‘IN THE SEVEN WOODS’: an exploration of the outer and inner worlds of W.B. Yeats.
- 19 November 2025: OLD POSSUM AND THE PRIEST: the connected but inverse lives and works of T.S. Eliot and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
- 26 November 2025: THE ORATORY OF LIGHT: St Columcille, Iona, and how the poetic imagination affects our vision of nature & ourselves.
This annual series of talks explores cultural, religious and historical themes in the spirit of the research interests of the TCMRS and the guest lecturer. The series is named after the Elizabethan polymath, Dr John Dee, mathematician, classical scholar, astronomer, astrologer, navigator, alchemist and magician, who became an adviser of Elizabeth I (founder of Trinity College) and bridged the worlds of Medieval and Renaissance thought. He was also a bibliophile and scholar whose personal library was said to be the largest private collection of books in England.
For 2025-2026, James Harpur, Visiting Writer (Poetry and Non-Fiction) and Visiting Research Fellow of the TCMRS, presents ‘The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth’, a set of six illustrated talks on the works, lives and influences of poets, saints and mystics. Each talk will last for about 45-50 minutes, with time for questions. They will be aimed not only at scholars but at anyone interested in poetry, art, spirituality, imagination and ultimate truth.
James Harpur read Classics and English Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, and has published ten books of poetry, including his latest, The Magic Theatre, The Gospel of Gargoyle and A Place Where Ireland Is Invisible. His awards include the British National Poetry Competition and the Michael Hartnett Prize. His debut novel, The Pathless Country, won the J.G. Farrell Award and was shortlisted for the John McGahern Prize. His translations include the poems of Boethius (Fortune’s Prisoner, Anvil Press 2007) and ongoing work on the poems of Pierre de Ronsard. He is a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of the arts, and a Fellow of the Temenos Institute, London. He lives in West Cork.
For further information on this talk please email Professor Sarah Alyn Stacey at SALYNSTA@tcd.ie.