Are villains cardboard characters? If so, why do we enjoy them so much?
Drawing examples from film and TV drama, as well as from popular fiction, this lecture will try to explain the satisfaction of villainy for the audience. Using the novels of Wilkie Collins and Thomas Hardy, it will look at the development of the villain in nineteenth-century fiction; and at examples of contemporary literary novelists, like Hilary Mantel, who are willing to unleash the energies of villainy.
Founded in 1597 by Sir Thomas Gresham’s will, Gresham College is London’s first institute of higher education providing free public lectures.
130 free lectures delivered every year including subjects from the original 7 professorships: Astronomy, Divinity (Religion), Geometry (Maths), Law, Music, Physic (Medicine), and Rhetoric.
Archive of over 2,500 lectures you can watch on our website or YouTube channel.
All the lectures are free and will be live-streamed in 2021-22. To watch lectures live online, please register through the course webpage. The registration process is simple, free, and only requires an email address.
Tickets for in-person attendance at this event will be available two months in advance.
Gresham College was London’s first institute of higher education when it was founded in 1597 by Sir Thomas Gresham. Unusually for the time, Gresham lectures were free and given in both English and Latin – where most other higher education...