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Epic poems telling of cultures colliding, deeply conflicted identities and a fast-changing world were written by the Greeks under Roman rule in the first to the sixth centuries CE. Now, the first comprehensive study of these vast, complex texts is casting new light on the era that saw the dawn of Western modernity.  

Most of us can quote snatches of poetry - but which poems can we recite in their entirety? In a survey of memorised poetry, Lear’s ̽��ֱ��Owl and the Pussy-cat came top, and some people know all 143 verses of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. There are remarkable benefits of having a poem in your head.

At a symposium next month (15 September 2017) academics, artists and ornithologists will share their responses to the work of 19th-century poet John Clare, whose patient and accurate observations of birds in field and hedgerow continue to astonish and inspire.

A political leader who seeks to make his nation “great again” and a time when ‘post-truth’ rhetoric appears to support political ambitions. Not Trump’s America, but Rome 2,000 years ago.

A collection of essays edited by Drs Trudi Tate and Kate Kennedy looks at the legacy of the First World War through the lens of the creative arts. As a specialist in the literature of conflict, Tate explores the ways in which writers expressed the impact of trauma on families – and child rearing in particular.

�ճ����Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, A is for Albatross – in sketches retrieved from Antarctica, research into migratory patterns, and Coleridge’s famous ballad.

On the centenary of the death of Rupert Brooke, King’s College announces the acquisition of a major collection of materials relating to one of the nation’s best-loved poets. ̽��ֱ��collection will join the existing Rupert Brooke archive at King’s to make the world’s leading resource.

One of the UK’s most important medieval manuscripts is revealing ghosts from the past after new research and imaging work discovered eerie faces and lines of verse which had previously been erased from history.

In her new book Representations of the Gypsy in the Romantic Period, Sarah Houghton-Walker provides a fascinating insight into writers’ and artists’ portrayals of wanderers. Her study focuses on a period when gypsies’ fragile place in the landscape, and on the margins of society, came increasingly under threat.  

By aiming to discover the UK’s most memorised poems, a new research project – backed by a former Poet Laureate – will explore the poems that live in our collective memory, and the value of keeping poetry in our heads and hearts instead of just the page and screen. Is there a poem inside your head?