Time periods

Old English and Late Medieval

Medieval studies in the School of English currently draws on the resources of seven full-time members of staff with international reputations in Old and Middle English language and literature, palaeography and manuscript based research. With researching ranging from the vestigial traces of paganism in Old English literature to the early medieval framework of Finnegans Wake, by way of Old Norse and the manuscript culture of later medieval England. Read more...

Renaissance and Early Modern

Currently, there are five members of staff who specialize in literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, conducting research on topics ranging from the Elizabethan erotic narrative to Milton; from the history of the King James Bible to the progresses of Elizabeth I; from Samuel Pepys’s reading habits and networks to John Donne’s sermons; and from Robert Burton to student drama. Read more...

Romantic and Victorian

With innovative studies of major authors, such as Coleridge and De Quincey, Darwin and Dickens, members of the school have worked on topics as diverse as the nineteenth-century afterlives of Romantic poets, the discourse of the sublime in poetry, art and criticism, and Victorian theatre to name but a few. Read more...

Twentieth Century and Contemporary

With eleven permanent members of staff specialising in this dynamic research cluster, our work is attuned to emerging debates in postcolonial discourse and gender studies, involved in literary explorations of nationalism and transnationalism, and committed to the disinterment of forgotten genres and literary voices of the early twentieth-century. Read more...