CALL FOR PAPERS

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, LEIDEN UNIVERSITY

SEVENTEENTH LEIDEN OCTOBER CONFERENCE: THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, 30 AND 31 OCTOBER 

2003


"AND NEVER KNOW THE JOY": SEX AND THE EROTIC IN ENGLISH POETRY


The threat in the title of this conference is taken from a poem that, as

one might expect from its author, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,

contrives to handle the carpe diem theme with scurrilous directness and

with far less genteel urbanity than his contemporaries Marvell, Herrick

and Waller, although in this case the spattering of four letter words is

avoided. The various expressions of the "gather ye rosebuds" theme is just

one area that may be explored in this conference on sex and the erotic in

english poetry, although it would be fascinating to consider this

particular motive in its various guises in all periods from Chaucer to the

present day. However, it is hoped that contributors will extend their

study of the poetic expression of sexual passion into many other areas of

poetry, some of them not necessarily to be anticipated beforehand. And the

voice to be heard in the poems should not be exclusively that of the

conventional predatory male, since Lady Mary Wroth, Mary Robinson,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti are just a few of the

women in the past, and there are many more in the present, who, covertly

or explicitly, have given voice to a woman's sense of erotic power.

Although the main focus of the conference will be poetry in English in all

forms and styles, and from all periods, by poets from all over the globe,

papers on poets in other languages or papers dealing with more general or

more theoretical themes will also be considered for inclusion.


          Papers should have a maximum length of thirty minutes; and a

selection of the best papers from the Conference will be published, while

other may be commissioned for publication. Prospective speakers are

invited to submit proposals for papers or articles (a topic and title at

least, and, if possible, a 100-150 word summary) by 1 May 2003 (although

later proposals may still be considered) to the Conference Organizer, Dr

C.C. Barfoot, either by post c/o English Department, Leiden University, PO

Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands, or preferably by email:

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