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I would recommend courses led by Toby to anyone who wants to look at a text in detail in a study group
I was certainly surprised at how much I was thrown off balance by these two astounding writers…I look forward to returning for more
We all came to the group with different backgrounds and interests but Mark has skillfully guided us through a stimulating programme of Greek literature.
I always leave the meetings with a much broader understanding of what we are reading than when I arrived
Everyone feels they get heard and therefore that each of us has a contribution to make
In all of the courses I have attended I have felt a bond within the group, and this contributes significantly to the quality of the discussions
Lovely, intimate groups with in-depth discussions, lots of learning, and friendships are made for life there
I’ve read things I’d never dared read before. I’ve made new friends and met really interesting people.
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When he wrote Birches in 1913, Robert Frost was living in Beaconsfield in England, far
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Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
When he wrote Birches in 1913, Robert Frost was living in Beaconsfield in England, far away from the New England woodlands of his childhood. Saying “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader” Frost claimed never to have started a poem the ending of which he already knew. This poem manages to be many things at once: a celebration of joyful childhood play, an interrogation of memory and a technical tour de force with a cascade of images rendered in iambic pentameter that comes very close to the sound of everyday speech.
Birches is one of Frost’s most widely admired and anthologised poems. Over the course of two hours, we will work towards a deeper understanding of the poem through repeated readings, analysis and discussion.
Salon Details:
- Facilitated by Caroline Hammond
- Single meeting study, Thursday 3 June 2021, 6-8.00pm
- £25 includes background materials and opening notes
TO REGISTER for the study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £25. Contact us if you prefer to pay by direct bank transfer. Opening notes will be sent shortly after registration. The study is limited to 10 participants. Please contact us if you have any questions.
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“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” Toni Morrison, writer, professor and essayist on issues
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“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
Toni Morrison, writer, professor and essayist on issues including race, gender and forces of life, won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Beloved is regarded by many as Morrison’s best work, and once you have spent some time in the text, it is easy to understand why. Morrison works to help the reader grasp the psychological devastation wreaked by the institution of slavery by close observation of a community of ex-slaves creating lives in Ohio in the second half of the 19th century.
This text is meaty and evocative, and also quite difficult to read alone. The work also offers endless possibilities in terms of discussion of the formation of self, claiming of self, mother/child relationships, the fury of love, the permeable boundaries between the living and the not living, as well as the more predictable (but no less provocative) issues of race, gender and role of history.
But what you need to know– along with the history and context which will be provided as part of the Salon–is that the writing is so gorgeous. Morrison tackles the most painful aspects of human experience with an honesty and lyricism that will leave you breathless. If this is your first reading of the book, try not to read around too much until you have read the whole book: many reviews and commentary give away the central traumatic event that Morrison reveals carefully and purposefully in her own time. I think Morrison is very purposeful in the way she tells this story—we will discuss the framing and the narrative progression and her purpose there. You are strongly encouraged to read the whole novel before the study begins– and then we will consider it section by section.
This study is appropriate for first-time readers of Beloved as well as those who have previously read and studied Beloved in the Salon.
SALON DETAILS
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“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” Toni Morrison, writer, professor and essayist on issues
Event Details
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
Toni Morrison, writer, professor and essayist on issues including race, gender and forces of life, won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Beloved is regarded by many as Morrison’s best work, and once you have spent some time in the text, it is easy to understand why. Morrison works to help the reader grasp the psychological devastation wreaked by the institution of slavery by close observation of a community of ex-slaves creating lives in Ohio in the second half of the 19th century.
This text is meaty and evocative, and also quite difficult to read alone. The work also offers endless possibilities in terms of discussion of the formation of self, claiming of self, mother/child relationships, the fury of love, the permeable boundaries between the living and the not living, as well as the more predictable (but no less provocative) issues of race, gender and role of history.
But what you need to know– along with the history and context which will be provided as part of the Salon–is that the writing is so gorgeous. Morrison tackles the most painful aspects of human experience with an honesty and lyricism that will leave you breathless. If this is your first reading of the book, try not to read around too much until you have read the whole book: many reviews and commentary give away the central traumatic event that Morrison reveals carefully and purposefully in her own time. I think Morrison is very purposeful in the way she tells this story—we will discuss the framing and the narrative progression and her purpose there. You are strongly encouraged to read the whole novel before the study begins– and then we will consider it section by section.
This study is appropriate for first-time readers of Beloved as well as those who have previously read and studied Beloved in the Salon.
UPDATE 10 May: Three spaces still available
SALON DETAILS
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Antigone, Medea, Clytemnestra, Phaedra, Electra—some of the most memorable female characters in drama might first
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Clytemnestra, by John Collier, 1882
Antigone, Medea, Clytemnestra, Phaedra, Electra—some of the most memorable female characters in drama might first have appeared on stage before an audience of only men (with the roles played by men, as well). We are not sure whether women were even allowed to attend theatre performances in 5th-century Athens. We do know, at least, that these fascinating characters were created in a place and time where women had little place in public life.
It’s remarkable, then, that the playwrights who brought them to life gave a voice to such noble, intelligent, passionate—and above all, strong—women who were keenly aware of the constraints placed on them by the society in which they lived. Whether in doing so the writers were portraying what they admired, what they desired, or what they feared, is much less clear.
In the six weeks of this study we will read six of the finest Classical-age Greek dramas from Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—the latter, especially, showed a keen interest in the lives of women: Aeschylus’ Agamemnon; Sophocles’ Antigone and Electra; and three plays by Euripides, the Medea, Hippolytus and Bacchae.
SALON DETAILS
- Facilitated by Mark Cwik
- Friday evenings 7:00 pm – 9:15 pm
- Six-meeting study, 11 June to 16 July 2021
- Online discussions using Zoom meeting interface. Zoom is free for participants, instructions will be sent upon registration.
- Recommended edition:
- The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides; edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm; ISBN-13: 978-0812983098
- £200 for six-week study, includes notes and questions for preparation.
TO REGISTER for the study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £200.
ABOUT THE FACILITATOR: Mark Cwik has been organizing and leading discussions of great literature for over twenty years in London, Chicago and Toronto. He specializes in works from the ancient, mythic and religious world. He was trained as a discussion facilitator while at the Great Books Foundation in Chicago and has been a passionate advocate for great books education since attending St. John’s College, Santa Fe and the University of Chicago Basic Program in Liberal Education.
“I’ve been coming to Mark’s discussion groups for about 15 years . . . Mark is amazing in his ability to keep the group functioning smoothly. He asks questions that get to the heart of the piece and he keeps the group focused on those questions. You don’t feel that he’s trying to steer us to any conclusion; he’s in it with us to figure out what the author is saying. He makes everyone feel welcome and their opinions are respectfully heard. He’s always prepared and totally dedicated to advancing our understanding of the great books.” — group participant.
If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.
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Join us for a free introduction and sample discussion of the Lit Salon's new Iliad Unhurried close-reading
Event Details
Join us for a free introduction and sample discussion of the Lit Salon’s new Iliad Unhurried close-reading study!
Homer’s Iliad is one of those few books that grows richer and more rewarding with every reading. At this sample discussion, facilitator Mark Cwik will provide a short introduction to the world of Homer and the Trojan War, and then we’ll read and discuss together a short passage from this marvelous poem. No prior knowledge or experience with the Iliad necessary!
SALON SAMPLER DETAILS
- Facilitated by Mark Cwik
- Tuesday, 15 June 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm
- Online discussion using Zoom.
- A short passage from the Iliad will be sent by email upon registration
- Price: Free, but registration is required.
TO REGISTER for this free sample discussion, please email facilitator Mark Cwik. Please be sure to include your full name and email address in the body of the email.
ABOUT THE FACILITATOR: Mark Cwik has been organizing and leading discussions of great literature for over twenty years in London, Chicago and Toronto. He specializes in works from the ancient, mythic and religious world. He was trained as a discussion facilitator while at the Great Books Foundation in Chicago and has been a passionate advocate for great books education since attending St. John’s College, Santa Fe and the University of Chicago Basic Program in Liberal Education.
“I’ve been coming to Mark’s discussion groups for about 15 years . . . Mark is amazing in his ability to keep the group functioning smoothly. He asks questions that get to the heart of the piece and he keeps the group focused on those questions. You don’t feel that he’s trying to steer us to any conclusion; he’s in it with us to figure out what the author is saying. He makes everyone feel welcome and their opinions are respectfully heard. He’s always prepared and totally dedicated to advancing our understanding of the great books.” — group participant.
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Event Details
"Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love." An Arundel Tomb, written in 1956 and first published in The Whitsun Weddings
Event Details
“Our almost-instinct almost true:What will survive of us is love.”
An Arundel Tomb, written in 1956 and first published in The Whitsun Weddings in 1964, can best be described as an almost love poem. Inspired by the 14th Century memorial effigy in Chichester Cathedral of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, and Eleanor of Lancaster, his second wife, its much quoted final couplet has divided readers since publication. Did the famously difficult and misanthropic Larkin really write a tribute to the power of love or is he saying something more complex?
An Arundel Tomb is written in rhymed six-line stanzas, with a faultless rhythm that makes it a joy to read aloud. Over two hours we will explore this surprising and moving poem about history, survival and love.
Salon Details:
- Facilitated by Caroline Hammond
- Single meeting study, Wednesday 16 June 2021, 6-8.00 pm
- £25 includes background materials and opening notes
TO REGISTER for the study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £25. Contact us if you prefer to pay by direct bank transfer. Opening notes will be sent shortly after registration. The study is limited to 10 participants. Please contact us if you have any questions.
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"The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said;" Philip Larkin Tree
Event Details
“The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;”Philip Larkin
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
Tree metaphors surround us – from back to our roots to out on a limb; seed in the mind to branching out; family tree, decision tree, tree of life . . . Powerful symbols of the paradox between stability and freedom, trees can provide a rich starting point for the unfurling of complex ideas.
Much like the Greek (root) word for metaphor, amphora – a storage vessel used for transporting valuable goods – a poem can be a container for our rich inner worlds. So we will look to the metaphor and the poetry of trees.
In these four two-hour themed workshops, we will read carefully selected poems and prose about trees (e.g. Blake, Larkin, Oliver) as a starting point for writing, reflection and dialogue. We will practise shared reading and use a blend of creative, expressive and reflective writing approaches – flow writing, poetry making, metaphor, life writing – as writing prompts. In this supportive, confidential space, you will have the opportunity to share your writing (although you will never be obliged to do so) and to reflect on others’ writing.
No formal experience or preparation is needed, just a willingness to give writing a go! Simply bring a desire to share, reflect and experiment with words (and paper and pen). This workshop is about self-development rather than literary-development.
From a participant in a recent similar event: “I had fun playing with words and inventing my own even. I liked discarding the rules and just being free with the language. In that sense, writing the poem itself was an act of controlling and letting go.”
Salon details:
- Facilitated by Alison Cable
- Tuesday evenings, 4-6.00 pm
- Four-meeting virtual study: 22, 29 June and 6, 13 July
- £70 for four meetings, please use the Paypal button below
- Special offer: Participants can join for just one session for £18
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Of the many books we read in a lifetime, some small percentage—maybe just one or two, certainly just a handful—strike
Event Details
Of the many books we read in a lifetime, some small percentage—maybe just one or two, certainly just a handful—strike us in such a way that we long to go back and really read them. By the time we reach the end, we know there was so much more there than we realized when we first began.
Homer’s Iliad is one of those books. What starts out as a story of seemingly petty men and even pettier divinities builds slowly over its 24 books into a profound meditation on some of the most basic questions of human existence—how do we find meaning in a world we don’t control? what is worth living for? and what is worth dying for? The Iliad is one of the few, almost miraculous, works of art that grows richer and deeper with every visit.
The Iliad Unhurried study will make a slow, close reading of the Iliad, beginning-to-end. Iliad Unhurried takes a serial approach: once-a-week instalments of a manageable 75 minutes, with no advance reading—something to add to your week without displacing other activities. We’ll sip-and-savour our way through, in small weekly tastings.
FORMAT
The pattern for each meeting of Iliad Unhurried will be simple: read-discuss, read-discuss. We’ll read aloud a small section of text—somewhere between a paragraph and a page—stop to sift through what’s happened, then read on. We’ll ask ourselves what we see in the narrative and imagery, what we hear in the language of the characters and the voice of the poem, where the poem leads our feelings and how it shapes our sensibilities. Slow reading allows us to savour the nuances of character, social and political dynamics, and the deep psychological and philosophical undercurrents running through this finest of epics.
The study will read from two translations of the Iliad: the Robert Fagles translation will be our primary version, supplemented by Caroline Alexander’s.
Each weekly meeting of Iliad Unhurried will last 1hr 15min. At a planned pace of 4 – 6 meetings per book of the poem, our reading of the entire Iliad will likely stretch to 24 -36 months. We’ll adjust the pace to the wishes of the group, and we’ll relish the joy of the journey!
Registration for Iliad Unhurried is in subscriptions of 12-weeks at a time.
If you have any questions about this study, please contact facilitator Mark Cwik.
SALON DETAILS
- Facilitated by Mark Cwik
- Wednesday afternoons 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm
- Beginning 23 June 2021
- Online discussions using Zoom.
- Recommended editions:
-
- The Iliad, by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles, introduction by Bernard Knox
(Penguin Classics, 1998)
ISBN-13: 978-0140275360 - The Iliad, by Homer, translated by Caroline Alexander
(Vintage, 2017)
ISBN-13: 978-1784870577
- The Iliad, by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles, introduction by Bernard Knox
- £150 for twelve-week subscription.
TO REGISTER for the study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £150. If you would prefer to pay by bank transfer, please email facilitator Mark Cwik to arrange payment.
ABOUT THE FACILITATOR: Mark Cwik has been organizing and leading discussions of great literature for over twenty years in London, Chicago and Toronto. He specializes in works from the ancient, mythic and religious world. He was trained as a discussion facilitator while at the Great Books Foundation in Chicago and has been a passionate advocate for great books education since attending St. John’s College, Santa Fe and the University of Chicago Basic Program in Liberal Education.
“I’ve been coming to Mark’s discussion groups for about 15 years . . . Mark is amazing in his ability to keep the group functioning smoothly. He asks questions that get to the heart of the piece and he keeps the group focused on those questions. You don’t feel that he’s trying to steer us to any conclusion; he’s in it with us to figure out what the author is saying. He makes everyone feel welcome and their opinions are respectfully heard. He’s always prepared and totally dedicated to advancing our understanding of the great books.” — group participant.
If you have any questions about this study, please contact facilitator Mark Cwik.
Organizer
Event Details
Long Ago and Far Away is an ongoing, weekly virtual Salon group that began in January 2020 as an eight-week study of the
Event Details
Long Ago and Far Away is an ongoing, weekly virtual Salon group that began in January 2020 as an eight-week study of the Myths and Legends of Troy. Since then, the group have continued together and met weekly through a year of lockdown, going on to read:
- over twenty Classical Greek dramas by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides
- some of the oldest extant Greek myths in Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days, and the Homeric Hymns
- Ovid’s Roman retelling of myths from Greece in the Metamorphoses
- foundation myths of Mesopotamia and the Epic of Gilgamesh
- the biblical Book of Genesis
- most recently, beginning April 2021, a first sequence on the Sagas of Icelanders
Long Ago and Far Away meets in six-week segments, with a flexible reading plan that follows the interest of the group.The dedicated and energetic readers in the Long Ago group have just completed a first round of several Icelandic Sagas. Beginning 23 June, the group will continue with an extended reading of one of the gems of the saga tradition: the story of the wily, Odyssean poet-warrior hero of Egil’s Saga.
As grandly epic as Homer, rich in tragedy as Sophocles, compellingly human as Shakespeare, and psychologically keen as Chekhov—the sagas of Icelanders are the crowning achievement of medieval Scandinavian narrative and rank among the world’s greatest literary treasures. They describe a world of a millennium ago that nevertheless rings familiar with perennial human struggles. The forty-plus narratives of adventure and conflict that comprise the sagas are set in Iceland’s 9th- and 10th-century Age of Settlement, when a handful of families fled the oppressive kingship of Norway to set up new lives on an island in the middle of the Atlantic.
If you are interested in joining the Long Ago and Far Away group for our reading of Egil’s Saga, please email facilitator Mark Cwik for more information.
SALON DETAILS
- Facilitated by Mark Cwik
- Ongoing weekly study, email facilitator Mark Cwik for details if you are interested in joining.
- Wednesday 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm.
- New topic starting 23 June, 2021: Egil’s Saga
- Online discussions using Zoom meeting interface.
- Book edition:
- The Sagas of Icelanders, introduction by Robert Kellogg, with preface by Jane Smiley
(Penguin Classics, 2001)
ISBN-13: 978-0141000039
- The Sagas of Icelanders, introduction by Robert Kellogg, with preface by Jane Smiley
About the Icelandic Sagas:
As grandly epic as Homer, rich in tragedy as Sophocles, compellingly human as Shakespeare, and psychologically keen as Chekhov—the sagas of Icelanders are the crowning achievement of medieval Scandinavian narrative and rank among the world’s greatest literary treasures. They describe a world of a millennium ago that nevertheless rings familiar with perennial human struggles.
The forty-plus narratives of adventure and conflict that comprise the sagas are set in Iceland’s 9th- and 10th-century Age of Settlement, when a handful of families fled the oppressive kingship of Norway to set up new lives on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. It was in Iceland the era of a unique commonwealth of free chieftains with no king, clerical 
hierarchy, or armies, ruled by Viking traditions of honour and blood vengeance. Written down anonymously several hundred years later, the sagas look back on a pioneer generation struggling to forge and maintain a self-governing community in a harsh environment at the edge of the known world.
With economy of style and astute insight into character, the sagas portray poets, warriors, statesmen, farmers, and outlaws—strong and determined men and women who strive for power, wealth, fame, respect, and love in a frontier society that wavers between the rule of law and vengeance.
In this study we will first look closely at two of the short sagas, to become familiar with the unique literary style and the cultural background of these great tales. We’ll then lauch into the grand, multi-generational Laxdaela Saga, followed by one of the gems of the saga tradition: the story of the wily, Odyssean poet-warrior hero of Egil’s Saga.