Cathy Shrank is Reader in
Tudor Literature at the
University of Sheffield
and author of Writing
the Nation in Reformation
England, 1530–1580
(Oxford University Press, 2004).
Among other things,
she has published on travel
writing, language reform,
ideas of civility, mid-Tudor
sonnets and Reformation
dialogues. She is currently
co-editing The Oxford
Handbook to Tudor
Literature, 1485–1603 with
Mike Pincombe (Oxford University
Press, forthcoming).
Cathy Shrank presents her Desert Island Texts:
British Library MS Egerton 2711
Thomas Wyatt is the reason I embarked on postgraduate study and ended up in academia: he produces images and lines which stick in the brain, or make the scalp tingle. This manuscript is the most authoritative witness for many of his poems, as it contains verses written or corrected in his hand. It also offers a tantalising glimpse of the lives of the Harrington family who inherited it: the margins are crammed with the scrawled graffiti of the children (‘George Harrington is a naughty boy’; ‘Mary Harrington loves [...]’) and the traces of Latin and maths homework.
Thomas Wyatt is the reason I embarked on postgraduate study and ended up in academia: he produces images and lines which stick in the brain, or make the scalp tingle. This manuscript is the most authoritative witness for many of his poems, as it contains verses written or corrected in his hand. It also offers a tantalising glimpse of the lives of the Harrington family who inherited it: the margins are crammed with the scrawled graffiti of the children (‘George Harrington is a naughty boy’; ‘Mary Harrington loves [...]’) and the traces of Latin and maths homework.
Complete Oxford English Dictionary
I use the online version almost daily – it’s an indispensable research tool – but, as a graduate student, I also splurged over £300 on the compact one-volume edition. It now sits in our dining room, available for use when I’m trying to write and am avoiding logging on to the internet so that I don’t succumb to the temptation of checking e-mail. The OED project is all the more impressive when you consider its origins, completed in an age well before computers, with words on small slips of paper – sent in by a huge variety of contributors (including convicted criminals) – sorted into pigeonholes.
I use the online version almost daily – it’s an indispensable research tool – but, as a graduate student, I also splurged over £300 on the compact one-volume edition. It now sits in our dining room, available for use when I’m trying to write and am avoiding logging on to the internet so that I don’t succumb to the temptation of checking e-mail. The OED project is all the more impressive when you consider its origins, completed in an age well before computers, with words on small slips of paper – sent in by a huge variety of contributors (including convicted criminals) – sorted into pigeonholes.
Thomas More, Utopia
My next monograph is on Tudor dialogue – a genre which encompasses almost any and every topic (from fishing and archery, to political theory and the ‘proper’ behaviour of women). More’s elusive work was a foundational text for Tudor dialogists, one to which writers returned again and again. The profound questions it poses remain pertinent today – such as whether or not you compromise your values in order to make things, if not good, then ‘at least as little bad as possible’
My next monograph is on Tudor dialogue – a genre which encompasses almost any and every topic (from fishing and archery, to political theory and the ‘proper’ behaviour of women). More’s elusive work was a foundational text for Tudor dialogists, one to which writers returned again and again. The profound questions it poses remain pertinent today – such as whether or not you compromise your values in order to make things, if not good, then ‘at least as little bad as possible’
John Speed, Theatre of Empire of Great Britain
I love maps, and Speed’s are still, to me, some of the most beautiful there are.
I love maps, and Speed’s are still, to me, some of the most beautiful there are.
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
I’m very grateful that I did a BA (at Cambridge) in which medieval literature was compulsory, not least because it introduced me to this poem, with its intriguing mingling of voices and tones, from the comic and ironic, to the touching and tragic. Like Chaucer’s narrator, you can’t help getting swept up in the love affair between Troilus and Criseyde, as they clasp each other like ‘the swote wodebynde’, even as you know – and have been told – that their liaison is doomed. The cynical, romantic and vindictive threads that later adaptations – by Henryson, Shakespeare or Dryden – pick up are all present here, but held in productive tension.
I’m very grateful that I did a BA (at Cambridge) in which medieval literature was compulsory, not least because it introduced me to this poem, with its intriguing mingling of voices and tones, from the comic and ironic, to the touching and tragic. Like Chaucer’s narrator, you can’t help getting swept up in the love affair between Troilus and Criseyde, as they clasp each other like ‘the swote wodebynde’, even as you know – and have been told – that their liaison is doomed. The cynical, romantic and vindictive threads that later adaptations – by Henryson, Shakespeare or Dryden – pick up are all present here, but held in productive tension.
Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
My dad read to me until I was about eleven or twelve, starting (I think) with Beatrix Potter and ending up with Dickens. The Tale of Two Cities reminds me of him, but it is also my favourite of Dickens’ novels, from the cadences of that opening chapter (‘It was the best of times; it was the worst of times’) to the last (‘It is a far, far better thing that I do now’). It is a marvellously patterned work (as shown in the quotations here, which bookend the work with an interest in what is best, or better), or through repeated motifs, such as the revolutionary wives (above all, Mme Defarge) knitting, or the Parisian streets stained red with wine/blood. And I like the way in which Dickens has played with the romance formula, by making Charles Darnay’s double – Sidney Carton – the real, tragic hero.
My dad read to me until I was about eleven or twelve, starting (I think) with Beatrix Potter and ending up with Dickens. The Tale of Two Cities reminds me of him, but it is also my favourite of Dickens’ novels, from the cadences of that opening chapter (‘It was the best of times; it was the worst of times’) to the last (‘It is a far, far better thing that I do now’). It is a marvellously patterned work (as shown in the quotations here, which bookend the work with an interest in what is best, or better), or through repeated motifs, such as the revolutionary wives (above all, Mme Defarge) knitting, or the Parisian streets stained red with wine/blood. And I like the way in which Dickens has played with the romance formula, by making Charles Darnay’s double – Sidney Carton – the real, tragic hero.
Julia Donaldson, The Snail and the Whale
The tale of a snail with an itchy foot, who won’t stay clinging to the ink-black rock. I’ve read this over and over to my two children (now five and three) and don’t tire of it. Donaldson is an amazingly talented children’s author; many of her books (as this one) are also produced in tandem with the illustrator Axel Scheffler. Most of Donaldson’s works use rhyme and alliteration, but this one is particularly satisfying, with its clever internal rhymes and the economy with which Scheffler evokes the different geographic locations to which the whale, and the snail on his tail, travel.
The tale of a snail with an itchy foot, who won’t stay clinging to the ink-black rock. I’ve read this over and over to my two children (now five and three) and don’t tire of it. Donaldson is an amazingly talented children’s author; many of her books (as this one) are also produced in tandem with the illustrator Axel Scheffler. Most of Donaldson’s works use rhyme and alliteration, but this one is particularly satisfying, with its clever internal rhymes and the economy with which Scheffler evokes the different geographic locations to which the whale, and the snail on his tail, travel.
C.S. Lewis, The Horse and his Boy
I read the Chronicles of Narnia again and again as a child, completely immersed in Lewis’ imaginary world and happily spending hours drawing maps of Narnia (and the seven isles) from memory. I’ve read this recently to my five-year-old, reliving my own childhood as I saw her captured by the magic (she too thinks Aslan is, or should be, real). This was always my favourite of the seven books, if only because the children don’t have to return home at the end of it. Lewis gets a bad press for his overt Christianity (and his seeming hostility towards other religions). As a child, I was blithely unaware of the allegory, and – in Lewis’ defence – the final book in the series, The Last Battle, does make a strong plea for religious understanding: as Emeth the Calormene discovers, it doesn’t matter whom you worship, but what you do in their name.
I read the Chronicles of Narnia again and again as a child, completely immersed in Lewis’ imaginary world and happily spending hours drawing maps of Narnia (and the seven isles) from memory. I’ve read this recently to my five-year-old, reliving my own childhood as I saw her captured by the magic (she too thinks Aslan is, or should be, real). This was always my favourite of the seven books, if only because the children don’t have to return home at the end of it. Lewis gets a bad press for his overt Christianity (and his seeming hostility towards other religions). As a child, I was blithely unaware of the allegory, and – in Lewis’ defence – the final book in the series, The Last Battle, does make a strong plea for religious understanding: as Emeth the Calormene discovers, it doesn’t matter whom you worship, but what you do in their name.
Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs
I’ve a decided penchant for detective stories. This is one of my favourites, mainly because of its use of multiple narrative voices, as Poirot gets each of the ‘little pigs’ to reconstruct the fatal events of a summer 16 years earlier.
I’ve a decided penchant for detective stories. This is one of my favourites, mainly because of its use of multiple narrative voices, as Poirot gets each of the ‘little pigs’ to reconstruct the fatal events of a summer 16 years earlier.
Robert Graves, I, Claudius
Historical novels are another indulgence. I do think Graves is an underrated novelist. He has a gift for capturing different voices (for example, that of Milton’s first wife, Marie Powell, in Wife to Mr Milton). I Claudius is eminently readable (and re-readable), Graves’ knack for creating a psychologically believable persona further fuelled by Tacitus’ racy narrative of early imperial Rome, on which he draws.
Historical novels are another indulgence. I do think Graves is an underrated novelist. He has a gift for capturing different voices (for example, that of Milton’s first wife, Marie Powell, in Wife to Mr Milton). I Claudius is eminently readable (and re-readable), Graves’ knack for creating a psychologically believable persona further fuelled by Tacitus’ racy narrative of early imperial Rome, on which he draws.
