Acknowledgements
The initial idea of writing this book comes from Prof Mark Ford’s talk in Literary London Conference, 2014. The purpose of writing this book is to encourage colleagues, students and those who are interested in poetry and London, to keep studying and doing research and teaching on the subject.
I would like to thank Mr Michael Song, the President of Showwe Publisher in Taipei. Without his friendship and encouragement, I won’t be able to finish writing in a smooth way. I also want to thank Ms Irene Cheng and Mr Jonathan Hung, for all suggestions in the process of publishing this book.
I particularly want to thank my colleagues, students and friends in the Faculty of Education, Gaziantep University. Apart from developing academic interests, they also help me to know myself more, in many priceless conversations and talks.
The last but not the least, I thank my beloved family members, for their understanding and love.
A.L.
Gaziantep 2016
Acknowledgements
Preface by Prof Mark Ford
Chapter1: Love
Chapter2: History
Chapter3: Metropolis
Chapter4: Teaching London Poetry and Cultural Exchange
Chapter5: Urbanity
Chapter 1: Love
In this chapter, I read several literary texts, in order to demonstrate the relation between the viewing subject and the gazed object, in terms of love, illusion and and aesthetic ecstasy. Walter Benjamin’s untitled poem illuminates love and blessing through artistic images, as in Giorgio de Chirico’s painting, The Song of Love (1914). Love in London is somehow a dream-like image – a surreal illusion of love, which stays in the viewer’s mind as a poem of colours, representing eternity. Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day says it better, when Mary walks into the British Museum and gazes at the Elgin Marbles, thinking how much she is in love with Ralph. John Keats’ ‘On Seeing the Elgin Marbles’ also depicts the way in which a gaze of love could be an eternal moment of aesthetic ecstasy. Finally, Wendy Cope’s two London poems, ‘Lonely Hearts’ and ‘After the Lunch’, come to express how love is romantic, in a way which imagination, desire, and even disappointment can be a sentimental experience.
Introduction
Love can be defined in various terms, in different conditions and contexts. When one is alone, love can be seen as a desire. To be alone with one’s self somehow is a perfect way to possess the loved object, as one can manipulate the love relation within one’s own mind, as the reader can see in Walter Benjamin’s note-like poem. In London, Virginia Woolf’s character Mary, in Night and Day, has her love secret unfolded when seeing the Elgin marbles in the British Museum. Through the gaze, Mary constructs a surreal situation, which goes beyond her present space and time, imaging Ralph as her guardian, who is able to love her in return. The same work of art, when in Keats’ poem, the reader can see that the whole experience of gazing at the Elgin marbles turns to be a sense of sympathizing love, for the mortality of one’s own physical being, and the limitation of its relation with the others.
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