Chapter 1 argues that apocalyptic images and texts from the late Romantic period onwards respond to John Milton’s poetic treatment of temporality and grief in Paradise Lost, focusing on Mary Shelley’s apocalypse novel The Last Man. Shelley’s work, a project of revivification and memorialisation, challenges more conventional public narratives by embracing fragmentation and combining personal loss and universal catastrophe. In doing so, the novel draws on Milton’s epic, especially Adam’s prophetic vision after the fall. Shelley’s writings, including her letters, journals and Frankenstein, are read alongside John Martin’s apocalypse paintings and mezzotint illustrations of Paradise Lost. The chapter begins by positioning Shelley’s novel as a shared intertext for Martin’s The Last Man and Louis Édouard Fournier’s The Funeral of Shelley, both housed in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. It argues that Martin’s Paradise Lost illustrations more closely parallel Shelley’s literary response to Milton: both recreate Milton’s prophetic temporality and express apocalyptic grief through reference to darkness and light.

The Introduction outlines the intermedial method of this book, which brings together Milton with nineteenth-century writers and artists who engage with each other’s work at the same time as reading Milton directly. It provides an overview of Milton’s place in the visual and material culture of the long nineteenth century. This includes the literary galleries of the late eighteenth century, the development of proto-cinematic technologies and stage spectacles, illustration on canvas and the page, and interventions in books such as extra-illustration and marginalia. The Introduction also addresses the various metaphors drawn from Milton’s writing that scholars have used to explain his influence, comparing him to a ghost, a troll, a father, even God. It then proposes the epic simile as a useful model for the way Milton is understood in this book: just as Milton’s similes describing Satan suggest, a powerful figure can be like many disparate things at the same time.

Octavia, sister of the later Augustus, often stands in the shadows of great matronae, such as Fulvia and Livia Drusilla, in modern scholarship. Yet she played a vital part in the triumviral political programme and exercised significant influence on state and triumviral politics in the years 39–32 BCE. This chapter argues for Octavia’s political influence on M. Antonius and Young Caesar being instrumental in maintaining peace between the two colleagues from the aftermath of the Bellum Perusinum to the eventual final collapse of relations between the two triumvirs in 32. This chapter further argues that the historical Octavia built on traditional modes of influence originating from the socio-political elite milieu of the Late Republic but that the Octavia constructed in the historical narratives looked ahead to the creation of the ideal matrona of the Imperial domus all while paying tribute to her vital role in preserving concordia in the res publica.

This introduction offers an overview of the volume’s variety of literary critical approaches to reading William James, and its account of James’s equally various approaches to literature. We draw out some of the generative through-lines among these approaches and spell out some of their broader implications for how we read, teach, and respond to literature. In outlining the three sections of the book – Style, Influence, and Method – we show how James historically informs and prospectively transforms the way we think about the bedrock premises of literary study. As we contend, the persistent richness of James’s work and the ongoing relevance of literary study itself are rooted in similar commitments: For both, any critical investigation must synchronously value expression, edification, and application. Our volume foregrounds these stakes – the aesthetic, the transmissive, the practical – because together they comprise an ideal bridge between James and literary study, a mutual paradigm that we contend is fundamentally pedagogical in nature.

The challenge of transitioning to a net-zero-carbon world requires engineers and scientists to blend their technical proficiency with soft skills such as trust-building, stakeholder influence, and effective leadership within multidisciplinary teams. This seamless integration of subject matter expertise and interpersonal skills — especially those focused on leadership — are essential for driving change. Unfortunately, these skills and knowledge are frequently left out of the foundational curriculum of science-based graduate programs across the United States. In order to accelerate the energy transition, we propose that our students receive instruction in developing skills required for effective implementation and leadership of change. This chapter will set up the framework for management and leadership training for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students or postdocs, whether in a two-hour workshop or a full semester course.

Seductive messaging about ‘convenient’ technological solutions have prevented us recognising and acting on the need for restraint as a core component of climate action, yet restraint has in the past led to faster change than technological innovation. The actions that allow us to deliver a safe climate are specified in the chapter and are highly specific. At home, we should aim to switch from gas boilers to electric heat pumps, from petrol to electric cars, to phase out our use of fossil aeroplanes and certain key foods, and we can also reduce our total requirement for energy. In teams, at work or in other contexts, we can pursue the same goals, while also aiming to reduce the construction of new large objects (buildings, vehicles, infrastructure or large equipment) and to support suppliers and customers on the same journey. As lobbyists, individually or in groups, we can influence politicians and business leaders to make it easier for us to follow the key actions that lead to zero emissions.

This pithy Introduction justifies the existence of the volume and explains why its contributors do not apply the term “minor works” to Ennius’ corpus. It then provides an overview of the diversity of this corpus, zooming in on the remains of his comedy as an example of what is not quite lost, and briefly shows that Ennius deeply influenced the Roman literary tradition as a multiform author (not just as an epicist). The Introduction closes by explaining the dispensation of the volume and what its contributors achieve.

Artists can get their first inspiration for what they want to do in their lives when they see another person’s work. Early encounters with theater, television shows, movies, books, or music can serve as catalysts for a lifetime in the arts. At the most fundamental level, experiencing the art of others can demonstrate that such a career pathway is possible. In this chapter, artists remember moments of seeing, hearing, watching, or experiencing a life-changing piece of art. Some artists continue in that specific domain, whereas others might be initially inspired by one domain but find a better artistic home in another domain. An artist’s early efforts may even be directly inspired by another piece of work.

Debussy composed three of his planned Six Sonatas for Various Instruments between 1915 and 1917 before his death in 1918. In 2018, composers from across Europe and North America were invited to write music for the instrumentation of these three incomplete sonatas from Debussy’s grand project, for a concert to be held at the University of Glasgow Memorial Chapel. As a result, several original works were performed by the Chamber Group of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the direction of Jon Hargreaves, alongside the completed Debussy sonatas.

This chapter presents the reflections of several of these composers, exploring how they confronted the specific question of Debussy’s influence and legacy, as well as trickier questions that arise from attempts to memorialise canonical precursors through contemporary creative practice. In what ways might Debussy’s music live on through the widely diverse imaginations of twenty-first-century composers?

In her chapter, Pilar Villar-Argáiz shows how the poetry of Eavan Boland often invokes the very revivalism she seems at times to critique. Villar-Argáiz examines a number of Boland’s poetic predecessors in order to show her multiple points of contact with the Irish past. Though Boland engaged critically with W. B. Yeats’s revivalism, particularly as reflected in the “lyric imperative” that runs throughout his work, her posthumous published collection The Historians represents a partial reconciliation with Yeats’s work and poetic example. This reconciliation allows Boland to celebrate what she inherits from Yeats – particularly his use of use poetry to create a sense of community, not only among other writers but more broadly among the Irish people at large. Boland’s work strives for this sense of community, of belonging through relationships with landscape and “domestic interiors. In her late twentieth century revivalism, Boland thus revitalizes the bardic function so important to Yeats.

In her chapter, Rosie Lavan explores Eavan Boland’s relationship to two post-Revival poets, Padraic Fallon and Sheila Wingfield. These under-studied writers occupy an insecure position with respect to the legacies of the literary revival, particularly the work of Yeats. This was especially true of Fallon who believed Yeats’s influence to be deleterious to poets who followed him. As many critics have pointed out, Boland’s engagement with the Irish poetic tradition, particularly its emphasis on male mastery, is both powerful and ambivalent, for despite the critical gaze she trains on this tradition she is able to recognize and make use of Yeats’s poetic bequest. As Lavan shows, Wingfield provided a counter influence in the sense that her work depicted the struggle with the pressures of time. To resign herself to time, Boland came to understand, is to come to a fuller understanding of how she defines herself as a poet.