Alexander Fairbairn-Dixon FRSA

12/05/2026

Really pleased to announce that City Lit have provided me with an opportunity to re-run this course, fully enrolled last year, on a different day of the week this coming autumn.

We’ll be explored three of the great early Emglish pre-Shakespearean tragedies.

Come and explore three pioneering tragedies of the early English Renaissance commercial stage (1585-1592): The Spanish Tragedy (1586), Arden of Faver...

29/03/2026

Enrolments are open for my summer term course on the wonderful Muriel Spark.

We’ll be looking at everything from metanarrative, her sparkling satire, and religious-existential dilemmas.

Come and explore ethe rewards of reading Muriel Spark at her prime. We’ll read, analyse, and debate three of her greatest novellas, all written in th...

28/03/2026

Calling all Romantics! The last spaces are left for my one-dayy course on Keats, held at Keats House, Hampstead.

In the house where many of them were written, we will explore why Keats’s poems are regarded as exceptionally beautiful. How did he achieve this? We ...

28/03/2026

Thrilled to discover that the second of my two one-day intensive courses on Yeats is now full.

Both courses are scheduled to run again in 2027.

This in-college day one-day course examines the final two decades of Yeats’ career. Tracking the development of the poet chronologically, selecting t...

26/03/2026

Calling all rogues, down-and-outs, and literary ramblers! Enrolments are open for my course on the contemporary American picaresque this summer term.

Come and explore the rewards of reading three modern American picaresque novels. We’ll read, analyse, and debate three novels which all reinvent the ...

22/02/2026

One final push recruiting for my WB Yeats intensive course running this Saturday!

This one-day course examines how Yeats’ career spans three decades of experimentation. Tracking the development of the poet chronologically, selectin...

12/02/2026

This one-day course examines how Yeats’ career spans three decades of experimentation. Tracking the development of the poet chronologically, selectin...

27/10/2025

After a full enrolment of no less than 18 scholars for my Renaissance course on ‘The Birth of English Tragedy’, I’m thrilled to announce that my course on ‘Renaissance City Comedy’ has been approved and is now open for enrolment.

Come and explore four pioneering comedies of the Jacobean period: The Ductch Courtesan (1605), Eastward Ho! (1606), The Roaring Girl (1611), and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613). With London at its centre, city comedy places gallant gentlemen and courtiers alongside upwardly mobile merchants, avari...

12/07/2025

It was an honour to speak alongside authors Iain Sinclair, Michael Donkor, and Helen Mort at The British Library Conference on ‘Romanticism’ earlier this year. Thank you Dr Andrea Varney for organising this event.

I was invited to suggest engaging ways of introducing the contexts of Romanticism to students studying literature at GCSE and A Level, by using collection items, art, essays and manuscripts held at The British Library. (My section begins at 57 minutes in the video below.)

The conference was also supported by a teaching pack I was asked to write, full of a variety of differentiated exercises based upon a range of material and debates surrounding Romanticism. Thank you to Dr Varney and her team for their expertise and hard work in editing my drafts.

The British Library sadly suffered a cyberattack earlier this decade, and their wonderful web-site ‘Discovering Literature’ is gradually being reassembled. To bridge the gap, many of those realises are available to teachers via Padlet.

Get fresh ideas and resources for teaching William Blake, William Wordsworth and Romanticism at KS3–5, drawing on the British Library’s Discovering Literatur...