Knowing Edward Lear

The proposed research will lead to a book entitled *Knowing Edward Lear* for Oxford University Press, as well as to a range of collaborations with the BBC, Harvard University, the Ashmolean Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Royal Society of Literature, The Tennyson Society/Lincolnshire County Heritage Service, and other institutions. I will offer the first comprehensive critical study of Lear, examining his nonsense poetry alongside his natural-history drawings, landscape paintings, travel writings, correspondence, and diaries. Throughout, I aim to study Lear's achievement in relation to a broad range of scientific, religious, socio-political and cultural contexts -- contexts which emerge from within, but which also extend well beyond, the nineteenth century.

My book's governing line of enquiry concerns Lear's conflicted relationships with different forms of knowledge, and his fascination with how knowledge itself might be conceived and valued. Although he sometimes laments his being in a state of 'knowingnothingatallaboutwhatoneisgoingtodo-ness', this predicament also becomes an ethical stance; elsewhere he writes that 'we ought to know and feel the uncertainty of life continually'. So while Lear often seeks confirmation, clarity, understanding, another part of him wants to escape from knowledge, or senses that knowingness might be an avoidance of the range of experiences that life has to offer. A life lived in and through art is often, for him, a negotiation between these two impulses, and also an attempt to reconcile them. Acts of pictorial, musical, and verbal composition become not so much artifacts, but rather forms of activity, spaces in which to nurture a different sense of knowledge -- a knowledge Iris Murdoch described as 'an attentive truthful patience with the contingent'.

A key feature of the research will be its combination of close reading with broader cultural enquiry. Sustained analysis of Lear's style and archival study of his manuscripts, draft pictures, unpublished letters, and diaries will be complemented by intensive historical research. I aim to show, for example, how the Lear family's dissenting background informed the poet's responses to contemporary debates about Original Sin, the Fall, and sexuality; how his early pioneering work as an ornithological draughtsman led him to ask searching questions about new forms of scientific and social taxonomy; how his chronic struggle with epilepsy and depression informed his interest in emerging medical debates about relations between mind and body; and how his travels across Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East helped to shape his enquiries into the politics of empire. One particularly original aspect of the research is my revealing of connections across the tremendous range of Lear's work. His 'Book of Nonsense' has never been out of print since it was first published in 1846, but that year was significant for Lear in other ways too: he published an innovative travel book, and he was also chosen by Queen Victoria to be her personal drawing master. Lear was in touch with many luminaries of the age -- from Charles Darwin to the Viceroy of India, from Tennyson to Ruskin and the members of Pre-Raphaelite circle. My research breaks new ground by showing the effect these relationships had on his work.

My book's final section maps Lear's legacy, largely uncharted in previous scholarship, from the beginnings of the modernist experiment to the present moment -- roughly, from T. S. Eliot's telling Stravinsky that Lear should be read alongside Mallarmé, to John Ashbery's recent claim that Lear is his 'all-time favourite poet'. Lear's achievement and influence, I argue, is part of a larger story about how modern writers have been increasingly drawn to serio-comic tones and forms as a way of reflecting upon the place of art in the modern world.

"Why do you like Edward Lear so much?" I ask. His response is unusually boisterous. "Doesn't everybody? Surely he is one of the most popular poets who ever lived? (Michael Glover, interviewing John Ashbery, New Statesman, 2005)
The bicentenary in 2012 saw a number of events raise Lear's profile even further. My project addresses questions about relations between artistic creativity and scientific, socio-political, pedagogical, and religious debates that are of vital importance beyond the academic community. It is my hope that research into Lear's achievement can provide a keyhole through which to explore these relations. The proposed series of initiatives has been developed in discussion with a number of key collaborators, all of whom are integral to the envisaged impact of the project:
I am in talks with Kevin Dawson (Head of Whistledown Productions) about a programme for Radio 4 entitled "Moonlighting with Edward Lear". This will offer new perspectives on Lear's early life, and will also seek to encourage debate about how marginalised categories of cultural expression -- "nonsense literature" or "children's literature", for example -- can provide insight into the larger cultural forces and pressures that shape them. Writers/experts from across the arts and sciences who have already agreed to be interviewed by me include David Attenborough, Adam Phillips, Christopher Ricks, Jenny Uglow, Michael Rosen, and Julia Donaldson. This programme should appeal to a large national public audience interested in biography, literature, and the arts more generally.
I will be a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Arts and Humanities Research at the Natural History Museum, and will give an interdisciplinary presentation on Lear for their "Nature Live" programme. This collaboration seeks to have an impact on public discussion of ways in which we can resist schematic divisions between "the two cultures". One objective will be to show how an understanding of debates in evolutionary science and psychology can affect the ways in which we construct and discuss sexual and social identities. I am also planning to work with the Museum's Schools Department to develop an initiative entitled "Wordplay" which will seek to inspire schoolchildren to write nonsense verses and to explore how linguistic experimentation can encourage creative thinking.
Jenny Uglow is keen for me to develop an idea for a symposium on Lear for the Royal Society of Literature. My aim here would be to raise awareness of how nonsense writing is centrally concerned with language acquisition and linguistic creativity, and to contribute to wider public debates about the role of play and surprise in childhood learning. As well as appealing to a literary audience, this event will also be targeted at parents and teachers.
My work on Lear's painting and poetry will lead to a talk at the Ashmolean showing how conversations between art historians and literary scholars can provide fresh impetus into public discussions about the role of art in civic life. I have also been invited to give the annual Tennyson Society public lecture in 2017, and which will explore how the Laureate and Lear engaged with debates about empire and about our relations with other cultures. This talk will be linked to a free online exhibition on Lear and Tennyson.
2 initiatives aimed at diverse international audiences: I will write four blog posts for the Houghton Library at Harvard. The library's blog site averages around 1000 visitors per week, and my posts will seek to promote insight into how Lear's work provides a model of understanding and negotiating geographic and national differences. Another web initiative is a series of four iTunes U podcasts on Lear for Oxford University. These podcasts will be available for free, and will capitalize on the tremendous popularity Oxford's iTunes U site (since its launch in 2008, it has reached an audience of more than 23 million downloads so far in 185 countries).