Articles 

• ‘Something white, uncertain’: Whiteness in Robert Frost’s Poetry' – Esther Bancroft  
• ‘Written at request of anti-slavery friends in America’: Considering the historical contexts surrounding Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point’ – Jordan Blake  
•  '[T]he principle around which Modernist literature and culture fashioned themselves was the exclusion of the masses, the defeat of their power, the removal of their literacy, the denial of their humanity' (John Carey). Are modernist texts elitist?' – Charlotte Bowyer 
• 'Heterotopia and Empire: The Space of the Opium Den in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ – Claire Elliott 
• 'Metatheatricality in ‘Twelfth Night’ – Anna Heath 
• 'Bildungsroman in Solar Storms: Formation in the Context of Ecological Devastation' – Lara Kelly 
• “The moral panic crystallizes widespread fears and anxieties [...] Sexuality has had a peculiar centrality in such panics” (Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society). What can we learn about social conditioning from the anxieties and panics in Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness?'  – Rebecka Kemae 
• “And I Tiresias have foresuffered all/ Enacted on this same divan or bed”: The relationship between the individual and the collective in TS Eliot's The Waste Land' – Niamh MacGloin 
• 'Victorian Womanhood: Economic and Moral Value in Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” – Tasha Mapes 
• 'The Divine Feminine within Neil Gaiman's American Gods: Sexuality, Sin and the Queen of Sheba' – Milo Ryan  
• 'Barry Lopez’s ‘A Presentation of Whales’: Examining Lopez’s text alongside visual and audio representations of whales.' – Layla Savage
• 'A Method to Their Madness: An Exploration of Madness as a Literary Strategy in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman' – Miranda Shute 

Foreword from the Subject Editor

I feel incredibly privileged to have been the English Literature Subject Editor this year; working alongside an enthusiastic team to review and edit a diverse range of student’s work. The BILT Journal provides a unique platform for students to engage in critical conversations, whilst also giving them the opportunity to showcase completely original explorations within their chosen academic field. This journal has also provided a source of extra-curricular engagement that has been incredibly rare throughout the pandemic; being involved has made ‘remote learning’ feel ever so slightly less ‘remote’. After a rigorous selection process each author should be incredibly proud to have their work published in this journal – it is an absolute credit to them and evidence of the diversity of interests within the English department at Bristol. Poetry, prose, and plays: the plethora of literature explored within each of the articles has been exceptional, exhibiting topics ranging from Renaissance metatheatricality to contemporary ecocriticism. This showcases that Literature can provide a springboard to engage in various topics, such as gender, climate, and race. The articles included exemplify how a range of discussions can be borne by one piece of text; including artistic interpretations, photography, and historical manuscripts. Each article provides an inspiring insight into a specialist topic, allowing the authors to showcase their strengths. I would like to thank the students and the editorial team for their dedication and, ultimately, their shared passion for literature, which has allowed the English section to flourish into the final, outstanding product that is presented in this journal.  

Rosie Trethewey

Subject Editor for English

With thanks to: