Our history dates back to 1964 when the Department of English was one of the University’s founding departments, incorporating both literature and language. The first lecturers included such as Frank Goodridge who had fought in the War and, at Oxford, been taught by C. S. Lewis. The early 1960s were a moment of great innovation within British education, and our very first students were acutely aware of belonging to a whole new era within the history of universities.
In due course, the study of English Literature and English Language would separate and, in 2000, we became the Department of English Literature & Creative Writing. Until this time, Creative Writing had, under the guidance of Professor David Craig, developed as a free-standing programme dating back to 1970, and thus to the very beginning of Creative Writing as a discipline within British universities.
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In May 1965, Lancaster’s founding Chair of English, Professor W. A. Murray, gave the Department’s inaugural lecture, arguing that Shakespeare’s Macbeth was above all, 'a Catholic poem.' This interest in the overlap between literature and religion has remained a strong interest in the Department and, since 2014, we have had an annual lecture on that theme at Lancaster's beautiful medieval Priory, with lecturers including such as the novelist Sarah Perry and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
Another important feature of the Department’s life has been its editing of journals, including Nineteenth Century Contexts, through the work of Professor Keith Hanley and Medieval English Theatre, through the work of Professor Meg Twycross. This tradition continues with the journal Lune, under the guidance of Professor Jenn Ashworth, as well as the several student-run journals, including Cake, founded in 2008 by the now-eminent poets Andrew McMillan and Martha Sprackland.
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The Department has also benefited from many distinguished visiting professors. These have included, as Leverhulme Visiting Professors, both Colin Jager (Rutgers, USA) and Miguel Vatter (New South Wales, Australia), and, as longer-serving members of staff, the eminent French biographer Benoit Peeters (2016-2021), the prize-winning graphic novelist Mary Talbot (2021-2024), the former Thomas Wharton Professor of English Literature at Oxford, Terry Eagleton (2008-2022), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon (2014-2025). This rich combination of scholars and writers has helped to enhance the Department’s pioneering work in fusing the disciplines of literary studies and creative writing.
Since 2014 the Department has had a formal link with Grasmere Wordsworth in the Lake District which, in recent years, has included annual visit days and internships, work which has been led by Professor Simon Bainbridge.
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Since 2020, with the creation of the University Suite at Lancaster Castle, the Department has housed many of its open seminars at the Castle. This has nicely complimented the long-standing tradition, developed by Professor Alison Findlay, of staging full-scale summer Shakespeare productions in the Castle.
The Department has always placed enormous stress on providing a whole range of opportunities to its students beyond the curriculum, enabling them to read and perform not only at the Castle but also the Priory, the Storey, the Duke’s Theatre, and indeed Lancaster’s city-run Litfest, founded in 1978.
We are very conscious that our history is a living one, and very much in the hands of our students, and not only during their time at Lancaster but beyond, and so are very keen in touch with them and indeed to welcome them back to join us for one of our many events, not least our annual May Gathering at Lancaster Priory for drinks, readings, music and conversation.
