John Burnside

Ben Davies is Lecturer in English at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He is the author of Sex, Time and Space in Contemporary Fiction (2016).

This is a rich and insightful collection. Drawing on a wide variety of Burnside’s texts, and exploring themes ranging from masculinity to spirituality, and animals to ghosts, the contributors offer the most comprehensive account of Burnside’s writing to date. The volume will expand readers’ understanding of the diversity of Burnside’s work, and cements his importance within the contemporary literary canon.

• Series Editors’ PrefaceForeword: Nicholas RoyleAcknowledgementsContributors Chronology of John Burnside’s LifeINTRODUCTION By Way of an Introduction: John Burnside, WriterBen Davies (University of Portsmouth)CHAPTER ONE John Burnside’s Metaphysical World: From The Dumb House to A Summer of DrowningPeter Childs (Newman University, Birmingham)CHAPTER TWO John Burnside’s Numinous PoetryJan Wilm (Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen, Germany)CHAPTER THREE ‘A temporary, sometimes fleeting thing’: Home in John Burnside’s PoetryMonika Szuba (Gdansk University, Poland)CHAPTER FOUR Violent Dwellings and Vulnerable Creatures in Burning Elvis and Something Like HappyAlexandra Campbell (University of Edinburgh)CHAPTER FIVE ‘This learned set of limits and blames’: Masculinity, Law and Prohibition in the Work of John BurnsideRuth Cain (University of Kent)CHAPTER SIX Consequences of Pastoral: The Dialectic of History and Ecology in The Light TrapTom Bristow (University of Durham)CHAPTER SEVEN Walking the Tightrope: Félix Guattari’s Three Ecologies and John Burnside’s GlisterPhil Pass (Independent Scholar)CHAPTER EIGHT ‘A Kindred Shape’: Hauntings, Spectres and the Poetics of Return in John Burnside’s VerseDavid Borthwick (University of Glasgow)CHAPTER NINE ‘It was suddenly hard winter’: John Burnside’s CrossingsJulian Wolfreys (University of Portsmouth)INTERVIEW The Space at the back of the Mind: An Interview with John BurnsideBen Davies (University of Portsmouth)NotesFurther ReadingIndex