
Dr. Robert Lapp
Head of Department
The Reverend William Purvis Chair of English Literature
3M National Teaching Fellow
Office Phone: 506-364-2546
Office: Hart Hall 304
Email - rlapp@mta.ca
Dr Lapp teaches three periods of British Literature: the Restoration and 18th-century (1660-1780), Romanticism (1780-1830), and Victorian literature (1830-1900). His current research is focussed on forms of pantheism and panentheism in the poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley.
In the area of literary theory, he is also working on a study of “Integral Criticism” that applies the Integral Philosophy of Ken Wilber and others to the field of literary criticism.
As a 3M National Teaching Fellow (2008), Dr. Lapp is active in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. He is currently pioneering the development of Integral Education in post-secondary pedagogical practice.
Dr. Lapp is also interested in the theory and practice of the public performance of literature. His current project is a programme of Gothic Ballads that will be staged as a faculty recital in October 2011 in Brunton Auditorium and at other Maritime universities.
Courses Taught
Introduction to the Principles of Literary Analysis
Introduction to Poetry
Literary Periods, 1800-Present
Restoration and Augustan Literature
Literature of the Enlightenment
Literature in the Age of Romanticism
Regency Literature
Early Victorian Literature
Late Victorian Literature
Studies in Genre: Gothic Fiction
Studies in Genre: The Romantic Poetry of Consciousness
4000-level seminar courses taught:
Romantic Ecology (forthcoming, Winter 2012)
The Night in Literature
Literary Representations of the 1830s
Prose of the 1820s
Select Awards and Honours
3M National Teaching Fellowship, 2008
J. E. A. Crake Teaching Award in the Arts (Mount Allison University), 2005
Association of Atlantic Universities (AAU) Distinguished Teacher Award, 2003
Herbert and Leota Tucker Teaching Award (Mount Allison University), 2003
Select Publications
Contest for Cultural Authority: Hazlitt, Coleridge, and the Distresses of the Regency. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999. [PR 4484 L37 1999]
“Romanticism Repackaged: New Faces of ‘Old Man’ Coleridge in Fraser’s Magazine, 1830-32” European Romantic Review 11:2 (Spring 2000).
“Performing Byron: Alongside Liszt, Chopin, and Keats.” Revue de l’Université de Moncton, (Numéro hors série, 2005): 127-139
Select Reviews
Review of Anna Laetitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment by William McCarthy.
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment 2 (2010)
Review of Romantics and Renegades: The Politics of Political Reaction by Charles Mahoney. Romantic Circles Reviews 8.1 (Winter 2005)
Review of William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt: The Continuing Dialogue by Payson Gates. Criticism 44.3 (Summer 2002): 317-21.
Review of Romanticism, History, and the Possibilities of Genre, ed. Tilottama Rajan and Julia M. Wright English Studies in Canada 27.3 (Sept. 2001): 365-371.
Review of Napoleon and English Romanticism, by Simon Bainbridge. European Romantic Review 9:1 (Winter 1998).
Select Essays and Reference Articles
“My First Acquaintance with Critics.” The New Quarterly 117 (Spring 2011)
“AAU Institutional Award Winners Retreat Bulletin 2006.”
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“The Englishman’s Magazine.” Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism. Ed Laurel Brake and Marysa Denmoor. London: Academia Press and the British Library, 2009.
“‘Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey’ (William Wordsworth). Companion to Literary Romanticism. NY: Facts on File, 2009.
“‘Ode to a Nightingale’ (John Keats).” Companion to Literary Romanticism. NY: Facts on File, 2009.
“‘A Summer Evening’s Meditation’ (Anna Laetitia Barbauld).” Companion to Literary Romanticism. New York: Facts on File, 2009.
“The Swing Riots.” Companion to Literary Romanticism. New York: Facts on File, 2009.
Select Performances
“Nocturne: The Night in Music and Poetry” (with Dr. Janet Hammock). February, 2008.
“Performing Byron: Alongside Liszt, Chopin, and Keats” (with Dr. Janet Hammock). August 2004.
“Celebrating the Romantic Spirit: Piano Music and Poetry from the Romantic Era” (with Dr. Janet Hammock). Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto, October, 2003; PEI Indian River Festival, August, 2003; Mount Allison University January, 2003
Honours Thesis, Independent Studies, and Summer Research Supervisions
Ashley Steeves and Thomas Woodbury, Children’s Literature, 1800-Present (Ind. Studies, 2010)
Eva Lane, Byron’s Long Poems (Ind. Studies, 2007)
Amy Fox, “Romantic Identities” (Summer Research 2007)
Lesia Koszekan, Studies in Irish Literature (Ind. Studies, 2006)
Krista Lane, The Influence of Radclyffe Hall on Sarah Waters (Ind. Studies, 2006)
Katie Turzansky, “Representations of Chartism in 19th c Literature” (Summer Research 2006)
Emily Gordon, “Continuities in Romantic and Modernist Aesthetics” (Summer Research 2006)
Amy Fox, “Dream Visions from Medieval to Modern Literature” (Summer Research 2006)
Peggy Stockdale, The Metaphysics of Solitude in Byron and Shelley (Ind. Studies, 2005)
Jennifer Houle, “The Improvisatrice Figure in Late Romanticism” (Thesis, 2005-6)
Emily Gordon, “Depictions of Women’s Literacy and Authorship and Literacy in 18th- and 19th-century Literature (Summer Research 2005)
Michael Walker, “Sensation: The Meaning & Nature of Suffering in Keats” (Thesis, 2005-6)
Megan Sherman, “Filling the Spaces: The Performative Sublime in Three Shelley Odes” (Thesis, 2004-5)
Ryan Muise, Studies in Thomas Hardy (Ind. Studies, 2002)
Jason Boulet, “Body and Text in Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads” (Thesis, 2001-2)
Jason Boulet, Studies in the Novels of the Brontës (Ind. Studies, 2001)
Jason Boulet, “Aestheticism and the Victorian Sense Self” (Summer Research 2001)
Elizabeth Walker, “The Idea of Home in the Works of Oliver Goldsmith” (Thesis, 2001-2)
Véronique Leblanc, “Persistency in Dickens’s Modes of Comedy” (Thesis, 2000-1)
Mark Hewitt, Studies in Gothic Fiction (Ind. Studies, 2000)
Colin Lundy, Studies in Travel Writing, 1660-1940 (Ind. Studies, 2000)
Mark Hewitt, “Blake’s Chaotic Cosmology: Prophecy and Chaos” (Thesis, 1999-2000)
Richard Blount, Studies in Henry Fielding (Ind. Studies, 1999)
Mark Hewitt, “Norse Mythology in Blake’s late Prophecies” (Summer Research 1999)
Jeremy DeVito, “Deconstructing Alice: Lewis Carroll as Seen through the Post-Structuralist’s Looking-Glass” (1998-9)
Sarah Mills, Studies in Tennyson and Malory (Ind. Studies, 1998)
Sarah Mills, Studies in Christina Rossetti (Ind. Studies, 1997)
Memberships
North American Society for the Study of Romanticism
Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English
Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education