On Friday 28th April, Junior LitSoc (Year 11 Literature Students) were lucky enough to have an online Poetry Session with Professor Raphael Lyne, who is the Head of the English Faculty at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.
He had set the girls some pre-reading in the form of Hope is the thing with feathers, by Emily Dickinson, and then led a session which mimicked a Cambridge Supervision, where he asked questions and the girls had to offer their reading of the poem. All the girls got involved, and gave some really subtle readings of the text, which he actually said was of a level he would expect from his undergraduate students! He was extremely encouraging and made all the girls feel confident about exploring their own ideas – something which can be quite intimidating.
He was also able to very quickly answer questions about why we study Literature at University, and why particularly we may choose to study it at Cambridge. It felt like a brilliant end to a lovely year of Junior LitSoc.
