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Noel-Tod, Jeremy

Jeremy Noel-Tod has taught the more memorable bits of English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Cambridge, and reviews for the Telegraph and the Times Literary Supplement.

The numbers in square brackets refer to the issue of the quarterly in which the article appears.
The unbracketed numbers refer to the starting page of the article.
For entries in multiple issues of the quarterly, the occurrences are separated by semi-colons.

articles by, [16] 7; [18] 43; [20] 84; [23] 7; [35] 80

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20071201144654 Jeremy Noel-Tod on W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, 1066 and All That - Slightly Foxed Issue 16

For Pheasant Read Peasant

Jeremy Noel-Tod on W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, 1066 and All That

1066 and All That is a book that for me gleams so strongly with the same spirit of redress as to be a work of satirical genius. This is, I know, a little stronger than the usual estimate of Sellar and Yeatman’s ‘humour classic’. Its phrases are still commonly cited, and it appears never to have been out of print since first published in 1930. (I own two copies, one from 1936 – already the twenty-second edition – and another from 1994, reprinted twice in that year.) Yet literary criticism has paid it hardly any tributes at all. Presumably, this is because a) it contains cartoons and b) its preferred modus operandi is the pun. The pun is sometimes said to be the lowest form of wit. There is another way of looking at it, though – not as the lowest, but the most levelling.
20081201160645 Stalactites - Jeremy Noel-Tod, W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, And Now All This

Freudful Myth-Information

Jeremy Noel-Tod on W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, And Now All This

As in 1066 and All That, what carries the best jokes of And Now All This into something like poetry is an excess of wit. When the ‘Absolutely General Editors’ speak of sleepers entering ‘the land of Polymorpheus’, they casually combine their reading of Freud with their classical education. Elsewhere, ancient literature gets a whole chapter of learned mockery. ‘Myth-Information’ sets out to show – like many more pessimistic Modernist works – that ‘Western Culture is fundamentally myth-guided’. Proof comes in the form of the ‘Arthurian Cycle’, which looks like a Penny Farthing designed by William Morris, and is ‘steered by faith (or witchcraft)’.
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Social Climbing

Jeremy Noel-Tod & Robert Macfarlane on The Night Climbers of Cambridge

When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, a friend was billeted at the top of the tall college gatehouse. The stairs to her room were so many that, in case of fire, a long rope, bolted to the wall and ending in a noose, was thoughtfully provided for descent to the street below. With no intercom at ground level, a social call became a real test of friendship. But why did I take the stairs when I could have been shinning up the stonework?
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Dog Days

Jeremy Noel-Tod on W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

‘In August 1992, when the dog days were drawing to an end, I set off to walk the county of Suffolk.’ My copy of W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn – of which these are the opening words – is a first edition of the English translation from 1998. In fine condition these now fetch high prices, something that was pointed out to me as I stashed it in a knapsack last summer, and set off with two friends to retrace part of Sebald’s route along the Suffolk coast.

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