This was the major essay for Lloyd Davis’s “Renaissance, Poetry and Prose” subject in 1996 and I appear to have been in my element discussing the interaction between politics and religion. I book-ended my essay with quotes from Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum” so I was either being clever or showing off.

As was often the case you got no feedback on final essays so the 6 out of 7 rating for subject overall was the only indication of achievement.

I was clearly getting more confident in my writing whether justified or not.

Spenser and Milton

In 1996, Lloyd Davis had us present a seminar and I think they were allocated.

All I have have is the text submitted as an essay that reflected the presentation. He suggested I had tried to fit too much in and the first half lacked coherence but the second half was better. It must have been a difficult part of the job slogging through such uninspired work.

HENRYSON

Despite his criticism he gave me 16/21 which was pleasing at the time.

The dust in my life had settled enough to consider study again in 1996 after a long break.

As usual I had no idea how privileged we were to have Lloyd Davis as our lecturer. I can’t say I remember much about him except he helped with a slog through some pretty dense material.

I was sad to learn as I did my usual search for the further career of my lecturers to see he had a stellar career cut short by death in his forties.  He can’t have been much older than me and he won Humanities teacher of the year the year he taught me.

This eulogy tells the tale of his achievements. He is remembered by the Lloyd Davis Memorial Fellowship.

This course included some Medieval texts as well.  He started with Gower and continued through Henryson, Spencer and Milton. It made sense to dodge Chaucer since he was covered in other courses and Gower and Henryson were not emphasised in other places.

My notes say there was a seminar we had to prepare and then submit as written work along with a research essay. I don’t remember giving a seminar but I suppose I must have.

He gave us a thick subject reader and assistance getting into the mindset of the era.

I didn’t do any study for eighteen months so there is a gap until first semester 1996.

In that time I was still working full time in General Practice – I hadn’t noted that while doing the BA I finished a “Certificate of Satisfactory Completion of the Family Medicine Program” in 1989.  It was sufficient in those days to become a GP. I even did a couple of units towards an FRACGP but never finished it because I didn’t need to.

We also had a fourth child, a boy who was impossible at the time. This meant our little house was bursting at the seams. We moved into the hall for a while but then moved to a rental property, demolished the house and had a proper one built.

My mother died.

There were lots of reasons to put study to one side.