The Turnbull Lectures have run almost continually since 1891, and are always done on the general subject of poetry and may be delivered in either semester of the academic year.
Admission is free to all interested parties.
Series History
In 1878, Percy Graeme Turnbull was born into a prominent Baltimore family, one whose literary connections were already established and growing. Among other substantial correspondence may be found the record of Lawrence and Francese Turnbull’s admiration and close friendship with the poet Sidney Lanier, in response to whose grave illness and death in 1881 the Turnbulls solicited contributions and organized remembrances for many years to come.Lawrence Turnbull (1821–1900) went on to become a widely admired publisher, and Francese Turnbull (1845–1927) wrote novels and established the Woman’s Literary Club in Baltimore in 1890, which met regularly, and to which she read many presentations, until the year of her death.
There were five Turnbull children: Edwin Litchfield (1872–1927), Eleanor Laurelle (1875–1964), Percy Graeme (1878–1887), Bayard (1879–1954), and Grace Hill (1880–1976). Edwin became a concert violinist and musical director, Eleanor published poetry and translations of Spanish poets, Bayard became a renowned architect, and Grace distinguished herself in painting and sculpture.
Percy Graeme Turnbull was already showing signs of his substantial literary gifts at the time of his unexpected death in 1887. In memoriam, the Turnbulls approached Johns Hopkins with an offer to fund visits by prominent scholars and poets. Beginning with Edmund Clarence Stedman in March of 1891, the lecture series quickly established itself, through the generous $1,000 annual donation, as one of the premier lectureships in the nation. A partial list of the luminaries—T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, Harold Bloom, Charles Eliot Norton (whose name now graces a similar series held annually at Harvard), Ronald Paulson, Richard Lattimore, Randall Jarrell, Marianne Moore, Richard Wilbur, and Robert Frost—cannot do justice to the scope of the series, nor to the individual contributions of each invitee.
The Turnbull Lectures have run almost continually since 1891, with interruptions during the two World Wars. Despite the visibility of the lecturers and the strong institutional interest in maintaining the series, a lengthy gap occurred from 1984 to 1996. Shortly after Modernist poetry critic Joseph N. Riddel’s lecture in 1984, the series ceased.
Then, before the turn of the millennium, a committee was convened to study the history and future direction of the Turnbull Lectures. It was determined the lectures would be offered by the Department of The Writing Seminars. Since that time, a number of critics and poets have delivered lectures: William H. Gass, C. K. Williams, W. S. Merwin, Harold Bloom, Dave Smith (upon his arrival and investiture as the Elliott Coleman Professor of Poetry in the Writing Seminars), William H. Pritchard, Jahan Ramazani, Helen Vendler, and Richard Wilbur. The Turnbull Lecture is always done on the general subject of poetry and may be delivered in either semester of the academic year. Admission is free to all interested parties.
Past Lectures
No. | Date of Lecture | Speaker and Topic |
---|---|---|
118th | November 8, 2021 | Anne Carson"Zero is a number and Nothing is Something" |
117th | February 4, 2021 | Natasha Trethewey "You are not safe in science, You are not safe in history’: On Abiding Metaphors and Finding a Calling." |
116th | October 21, 2020 | Ishion Hutchinson "The Mariner's Progress: A Listening" |
115th | September 22, 2020 | Robin Coste Lewis |
114th | Oct. 2, 2019 | Catherine Barnett "The Risky Interrogative" |
113th | April 11, 2019 | James Shapiro |
112th | Nov. 6, 2018 | Langdon Hammer "Elizabeth Bishop: Line, Loop, Leash, Snarl" |
111th | April 10, 2018 | Terrance Hayes "Ideas of Influence" |
110th | October 24, 2017 | Tracy K. Smith |
109th | April 4, 2017 | Alice Oswald "Winged and Flightless Words: A Talk about Homer" |
108th | September 20, 2016 | Christopher Ricks, Boston University "T.S. Eliot and Matters of Principle" |
107th | April 14, 2016 | Linda Gregerson "Telling Time: Temporality in the Lyric Poem" |
106th | Feb. 3, 2015 | Denis Donoghue |
105th | Dec. 2, 2014 | Gwyneth Lewis |
104th | Oct. 10, 2013 | Paul Mariani |
103rd | April 9, 2013 | Les Murray |
102nd | Feb. 28, 2012 | John Irwin, Johns Hopkins University Building the Virgin: The Triple Female Archetype in Hart Crane’s The Bridge |
101st | Nov. 7, 2011 | Edna Longley, Queen's University Belfast |
100th | Feb. 15, 2011 | Stanley Plumly, University of Maryland |
99th | Oct. 20 and 27, 2010 | Edward Mendelson, Columbia University "No Second Troy: Symbols and Persons from Homer Until Now" |
98th | March 2, 2010 | Paul Muldoon, Princeton University "Six Irish Poems" |
97th | March 30, 2009 | Richard Wilbur Poetry Reading |
96th | Nov. 13, 2007 | Douglas Dunn, University of St. Andrews |
95th | Nov. 13, 2006 | Willard Spiegelman, Southern Methodist University "The Poet, Born or Made?: The Case of Amy Clampitt" |
94th | Feb. 23, 2006 | John Hollander, Yale University "Fictive Espionage" |
93rd | Dec. 1, 2005 | Alicia Ostriker, Rutgers University "Eros and Metaphor" |
92nd | Feb. 10, 2005 | Helen Vendler, Harvard University "The Yeatsian Sequence: Forms of Poetry in ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’" |
91st | Oct. 26, 2004 | Jahan Ramazani, University of Virginia "Remapping Modern and Contemporary Poetry" |
90th | March 15, 2004 | William H. Pritchard, Amherst College "Randall Jarrell’s Poetry" |
89th | Nov. 12, 2003 | Dave Smith, Johns Hopkins University "The Other Raspberry: Nature and Poetry" |
88th | March 27, 2003 | Harold Bloom, Yale University and New York University "Hamlet: Poem Unlimited" |
87th | April 22, 2002 | W. S. Merwin on memoir |
86th | April 26, 2001 | C. K. Williams, Princeton University on translating Frances Ponge |
85th | Sept. 11, 2000 | William H. Gass, Washington University (St. Louis) "The Life and Works of Rainer Maria Rilke" |
84th | 1984 | Joseph N. Riddel, University of California at Los Angeles "An American Poetics" |
83rd | 1984 | J. Hillis Miller, Yale University "The Difficulties in Reading William Carlos Williams" |
82nd | 1983 | John Malcolm Wallace, University of Chicago "Timon of Athens, De Beneficiis, and the Three Graces" |
81st | 1982 | Arnold Stein, University of Illinois "The Voices of the Satirist: John Donne" |
80th | 1981 | Paul de Man, Yale University "The Poetics of the Sublime" |
79th | 1980 | Michel Deguy, Paris "La poésie en question" |
78th | 1980 | James Nohrnberg, University of Virginia "Epic Comparison and Comparative Epic in Paradise Lost" |
77th | 1979 | Frances Ferguson, University of California at Berkeley "The Bathos of Experience: The Poetics of Edmund Burke" |
76th | 1979 | Frank Doggett Stevens Centennial Lecture, "Wallace Stevens: The Making of Poems" |
75th | 1979 | Ronald Paulson, Yale University "Constable’s Poetics: The Suppression of Literary Landscape" |
74th | 1978 | Jean Starobinski, Université de Genève "An Interpretation of Rousseau and Baudelaire" |
73rd | 1978 | Paul de Man, Yale University "Baudelaire, Benjamin, and Translation" |
72nd | 1977 | Symposium on John Ruskin John Dixon Hunt, London "Oeuvre and Footnote" George L. Hersey, Yale University "Ruskin as an Optical Thinker" Jeffrey L. Spear, Princeton University "‘These are the Furies of Phlegethon’: Ruskin’s Set of Mind and the Creation of Fors Clavigera" "‘My darling Charles’: Selections from the Ruskin-Norton Correspondence" Marc A. Simpson, Yale University "The Dream of the Dragon: Ruskin’s Serpent Imagery" William Arrowsmith, Johns Hopkins University "Ruskin’s Fireflies" Garry Wills, Johns Hopkins University Richard Macksey, Johns Hopkins University "Proust on the Margins of Ruskin" |
71st | 1977 | Yves Bonnefoy, Université de Nice "Que peut encore la poésie?" |
70th | 1977 | Harold Bloom, Yale University "The Sublime Crossing and the Death of Love" |
69th | 1977 | Edwin Honig, Brown University "The Poet’s Other Voice: Spontaneous Exchanges on Translation" |
68th | 1976 | Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, University of California at Berkeley "L’echo du sujet: sur al compulsion autobiographique" |
67th | 1975 | Jacques Derrida, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales "La Question de Style" |
66th | 1975 | Louis Zukofsky "Poetry and Poetics: An Objectivist Perspective" |
65th | 1975 | Josephine Jacobsen "The Landscapes of the Imagination: Elliott Coleman at Hopkins" |
64th | 1974 | Conference on the Genealogy of the Epic: Gregory Nagy and Richard Macksey, Johns Hopkins Univ., co-chairs Joseph Russo, Haverford College Albert B. Lord, Harvard University David Bynam, Harvard University Jenny Clay, Haverford College Hugh S. MacKay, Jr., Harvard University Douglas Frame, Paris et al. |
63rd | 1973 | William Heyen, State University of New York College at Brockport "On Richard Wilbur: An Experiment in Criticism" |
62nd | 1973 | Nathan A. Scott, Jr., University of Chicago "Hope, History, and Literature" |
61st | 1973 | Erich Segal, Yale University and Wolfson College, Oxford "The Birth of Comedy" |
60th | 1972 | Kenneth Koch, Columbia University "Poetry and Children" |
59th | 1971 | Paul Valéry Centennial: Jackson Matthews Gérard Genette, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales James Lawler, University of Chicago Michel Deguy, Université de Paris VII (Saint-Denis) Elizabeth Sewell, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Jacques Derrida, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales |
58th | 1970 | Dámaso Alonso, Real Academia de la Lengua "Hijos de la ina: Children of Wrath" |
57th | 1970 | David Ray "The Light-Bound Space of the Mind: Remarks on Contemporary Poetry and Painting" |
56th | 1970 | A. Alvarez, London "The Savage God: Sylvia Plath and Contemporary Poetry" |
55th | 1969 | Irving Singer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "The Loves of Dido and Aeneas: Variations on a Theme: Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas; Hector Berlioz: Les Troyens à Carthage" |
54th | 1969 | Northrop Frye, University of Toronto "Romantic Poetics and Myth" |
53rd | 1968 | Margit Frenck, Universidad Nacionale Autónoma de México, and Antonio Alatorre, El Colegio de México "Poesia y musica del renacimento español" (lecture/recital) |
52nd | 1966 | Michel Deguy, Université de Paris VII (Saint-Denis) "Poésie et Connaissance" |
51st | 1965-66 | The Poetic Tradition Roy Harvey Pearce, University of California at San Diego "Whitman and Our Hope for Poetry" Arnold Stein, Johns Hopkins University "George Herbert’s Lyrics: The Art of Plainness" Wolfgang Clemen, Universität München "The Spirits in Shelley’s Poetry" T. B. L. Webster, University College, London "Euripedes: Traditionalist and Innovator" Jorge Guillén, Wellesley College, Emeritus "A Portrait of Pedro Salinas" John H. Finley, Jr., Harvard University "Pindar’s Beginnings" George E. Duckworth, Princeton University "The ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ in Vergil’s Aeneid" Victor Pöschl, Universität Heidelberg "Poetry and Philosophy in Horace" |
50th | 1963 | Yves Bonnefoy, Brandeis University "La Poésie Française et L’Expérience de L’Être" |
49th | 1961 | The Moment of Poetry John Holmes, Tufts University "Surroundings and Illuminations" May Sarton, Wellesley College "The School of Babylon" Richard Eberhart, Dartmouth College "Will and Psyche in Poetry" Richard Wilbur, Wesleyan University "Round About a Poem of Housman’s" Randall Jarrell, University of North Carolina at Greensboro "Robert Frost’s ‘Home Burial’" |
48th | 1958 | Poetry Festival: concurrent with the First Bolligen Poetry Festival R. P. Blackmur, Princeton University "The Poetry of Edwin Muir" Yvor Winters, Stanford University "Poetic Styles, Old and New" Marianne Moore "The Poetry of Dame Edith Sitwell" Mark Van Doren, Columbia University "The Poetry of Thomas Hardy" |
47th | Jan. 1957 | Richard Lattimore, Bryn Mawr College "Studies in the Poetry of Greek Tragedy" (6 lectures) |
46th | 1954 | Pierre Emmanuel, Radio Télévision Française "Poetry, A Vocation" |
45th | Oct. 8-17, 1952 | Frank Percy Wilson, Oxford University "Elizabethan Drama" (5 lectures) - "Introductory" (Wed., Oct. 8) - "Tamburlaine" (Fri., Oct. 10) - "The Jew of Malta: Doctor Faustus" (Mon., Oct. 13) - "The Massacre at Paris: Edward II" (Wed., Oct. 15) - "Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare" (Fri., Oct. 17) |
44th | April 1951 | E. M. W. Tillyard, Cambridge University "The English Renaissance: Fact or Fiction?" (6 lectures) - "The Transition from the Medieval to the Renaissance Way of Thought in English Literature" - "Was There an English Renaissance?" - "The Transition in the Lyric" (Part 1) - "The Transition in the Lyric" (Part 2) - "The Transition in Literary Criticism" - "The Transition in the Epic" |
43rd | 1950 | Henri Peyre, Yale University "Baudelaire as Critic" |
42nd | 1950 | Mme. Marie-Jeanne Dury, La Sorbonne "De Victor Hugo intime à Victor Hugo mythique" "La Poésie Française sous l’occupation" (2 lectures) |
41st | 1949 | Charles Jasper Sisson, University College, London "Shakespeare’s Approach to Shakespeare" (3 lectures) |
40th | 1948 | Dr. Donald H. Stauffer, Princeton University "Studies in the Lyrics of William Butler Yeats" (3 lectures) |
39th | Nov. 1947 | Robert Frost, Dartmouth College "Precepts in Poetry" and "Extravagances of the Spirit" (6 lectures) |
38th | Jan. 1947 | George Frisbie Whicher, Amherst College "Emily Dickinson, The Making of an American Poet" (6 lectures) |
37th | 1941 | Joseph Warren Beach, University of Minnesota "A Romantic View of Poetry" (6 lectures) |
36th | Jan. 29/31, 1940 | W. H. Auden "Poetry and the Old World" and "America Is Where You Find It" |
35th | 1939 | Archibald MacLeish, Editor of Fortune "Six Lectures about Poets Now" (6 lectures) |
34th | 1938 | Robert Peter Tristram Coffin, Bowdoin College "New Poetry of New England" (6 lectures) |
33rd | 1937 | D. Pedro Salinas, Universidad Internacional de Santander "The Attitude Toward Reality in Spanish Poetry" (5 lectures) |
32nd | 1936 | H. J. C. Grierson, University of Aberdeen "Milton as Prophet and Artist" (5 lectures) |
31st | April 1935 | Lascelles Abercrombie, University of London "The Art of Wordsworth" (5 lectures) |
30th | Oct. 1933 | R. W. Chambers, University College, London "The Continuity of English Poetry, from the Beginnings to the Tudor Times" (5 lectures) |
29th | Jan.-Feb. 1933 | T. S. Eliot "The Metaphysical Poets" or "The ‘Metaphysical’ Poets" (3 lectures) |
28th | April 1931 | George William Russell (AE) "Some Personalities of the Irish Literary Movement" "A Poet and Artist Considers Dreams" (2 lectures) |
27th | 1930-31 [Fall?] | Edmond Faral, Collège de France "Le cycle poétique du roi Arthur" (6 lectures) |
26th | Oct.-Nov. 1927 | Albert Feuillerat, University of Rennes "Shakespeare and Poetry" (5 lectures) |
25th | Oct. 1924 | Walter de la Mare "Three English Poets and Some Elements of the Poet’s Art" [on John Keats, Emily Brontë, Christina Rossetti] (6 lectures) |
24th | Oct. 1922 | Émile Legouis, La Sorbonne "The Poetry of Edmund Spenser" (6 lectures) |
23rd | April 11-22, 1921 | Charles Mills Gayley, University of California at Berkeley "Contemporary English Poetry" (6 lectures) |
22nd | April-May 1917 | Edward Capps, Princeton University "Formative Influences in Greek Tragedy" (6 lectures) |
21st | March-April 1916 | Paul Elmer More, former Editor of The Nation "Poets of America" (7 lectures) |
20th | April 1915 | Sir Walter Raleigh, Oxford University "Poetry and Criticism of the Romantic Revival" (6 lectures) |
19th | April-May 1914 | George Lyman Kittredge, Harvard University "The Poetry of Chaucer" (6 lectures) |
18th | March 1912 | Paul Shorey, University of Chicago "The Greek Epigram and the Palatine Anthology" (6 lectures) |
17th | March 1911 | Maurice Francis Egan, Georgetown College "Typical Christian Hymns" (8 lectures) |
16th | March 1909 | Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Universidad de Madrid "Spanish Poetry" or "Spanish Epic Poetry" (7 lectures, in French) |
15th | Jan.-Feb. 1908 | A. V. Williams Jackson, Columbia University "Poetry of Persia" (7 lectures) |
14th | Feb. 1907 | Eugen Kuehnemann, University of Breslau "Deutsche Dichtung in der Zeit ihrer groessten Bluete" (8 lectures, in German) |
13th | March 1906 | Henry van Dyke, Princeton University "The Service of Poetry" (8 lectures) |
12th | March-April 1905 | George E. Woodberry, Nebraska State University "Poetic Forms of Life" (8 lectures) |
11th | Jan.-Feb. 1904 | Count Angelo de Gubernatis, Istituto di Studi Superiori di Firenze "Italian Poetry" (9 lectures, in French) |
10th | April 1902 | Emil G. Hirsch, University of Chicago "Medieval Jewish Poetry" (8 lectures) |
9th | 1900-01 | Hamilton W. Mabie, Editor of The Outlook "Poetry in America" (7 lectures) |
8th | April 1900 | C. H. Herford, University of Manchester "Nature and Romance in English Poetry" (8 lectures) |
7th | March-April 1898 | Charles R. Lanman, Harvard University "The Poetry of India" (8 lectures) |
6th | March-April 1897 | Ferdinand Bruntière, Ecole Normale "French Poetry" (9 lectures, in French) |
5th | April 1896 | George Adam Smith, United Free Church College of Glasgow "Hebrew Poetry" (8 lectures) |
4th | 1893-94 | Charles Eliot Norton, Harvard University "Dante" |
3rd | 1892-93 | Robert Yelverton Tyrrell, University of Dublin "Growth and Influence of Latin Poetry" (8 lectures) |
2nd | March-April 1892-93 | Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb, Cambridge University "Growth and Influence of Classical Greek Poetry" (8 lectures) |
1st | March 1891 | Edmund Clarence Stedman "The Nature and Elements of Poetry" (8 lectures) |