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The Seasons Revisited: A Seminar Discussion of a Lost Classic

Moderated by Denise Gigante and Claude Willan

Something less than sixty years after the publication of the 'Paradise Lost' appeared [James]Thomson's 'Winter,' which was speedily followed by his other Seasons. It is a work of inspiration… written from himself and nobly from himself.

­—William Wordsworth

Please join us on Tuesday, November 11, in the Humanities Center Boardroom for our final event of the quarter, which is a Poetics first: a Poetry Discussion session, on James Thomson’s _The Seasons_.

James Thomson's _The Seasons_ (1730) influenced generations of future poets. It ushered in a century of "loco-descriptive" poetry, a genre of verbal landscape painting. Above all, what _The Seasons_ taught, and the legacy it left poets like Wordsworth, was the mental habit of carefully directed attention. With that in mind, this session of the Workshop in Poetics will pay close attention to the poem (including by taking turns reading small sections out loud) that is often referred to as a _locus classicus_ of nature poetry in English, but seldom any more read.

Attached please find the 1730 edition of the poems on which this discussion will focus, “Winter” (1726) and “Spring” (1730). We will also supply a limited number of spiral-bound hard copy printouts; please ask Julia for a copy at the upcoming October 28th workshop on Lost Classics. If you cannot attend the October 28th session but are committed to participating in the session on _The Seasons_, please email julianoble [at] stanford.edu (julianoble[at]stanford[dot]edu) by November 4th to receive a copy in advance of the workshop.