Professor Steve Ellis BA, PhD

Department of English Literature
Emeritus Professor of English Literature

Contact details

Email: s.p.ellis@bham.ac.uk

Address: Arts Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I have published many volumes of literary criticism on a wide range of authors, including Dante, Chaucer, T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf, plus three collections of poetry and a verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. My latest monograph is British Writers and the Approach of World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Qualifications

I have a BA (in English and Art History) and a PhD (in Comparative Literature) from the University of London (UCL).

Biography

Born in York, I have previously taught at several colleges in London and in Florence before coming to Birmingham in 1984.

Research

My research interests lie primarily in the field of modernist literature leading up to World War II (especially the work of T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf) and in the modern reception of medieval writers (Dante, Chaucer).

Other activities

I have held many key administrative roles in the Department of English and beyond, including two terms as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts and the role of Director of Education in the College of Arts and Law.

Publications

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy. New and revised translation. Translated, annotated and introduced by Steve Ellis (Vintage Classics, 2019), pp. xxi, 640. 9781784871987.
British Writers and the Approach of World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. x, 249, 10 illustrations. 978 1 107 05458 5
T.S. Eliot: a Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum, 2009), pp. ix, 169. 1847060167
Virginia Woolf and the Victorians (Cambridge University Press, 2007, rpt. 2011), pp. xi, 211. 0521882897
Chaucer: an Oxford Guide (edited volume, with introduction) (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. xxiv, 644, 14 illustrations, with companion web site (Introduction pp. 1-5). 0199259127 pbk
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parliament of Birds, translated by E. B. Richmond (edited volume, with preface) (Hesperus, 2004), pp. xv, 151 (Preface pp. vii-viii). 1843911019
Spring Collection: Eleven poems by Steve Ellis with Eleven Cuts by Sandy Sykes (Graven Image, 2004), n. pag
Chaucer At Large: the Poet in the Modern Imagination (University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. xiv, 204. 0816633762
Chaucer: the 'Canterbury Tales', Longman Critical Readers (edited volume, with introduction) (Longman, 1998, rpt. 1999, 2005), pp. xiv, 241 (Introduction pp. 1-22). 0582248809 hbk, 0582248817 pbk
Geoffrey Chaucer, Writers and their Work (Northcote House/British Council, 1996), pp. xi, 80. 0746307772
Dante Alighieri, Hell. Translated, annotated and introduced by Steve Ellis (Chatto & Windus, 1994, rpt. 1994), pp. xxii, 208. 0701161272. Rpt. Vintage pbk. 1995. 0099476711. Reissued as Dante, Inferno (Vintage pbk. 2007, rpt. 2013)
West Pathway [poems] (Bloodaxe, 1993), pp. 63. 1852242353
The English Eliot: Design, Language and Landscape in 'Four Quartets' (Routledge, 1991, rpt. 2015), pp. x, 187, 15 illustrations. 0415066883
Home and Away [poems] (Bloodaxe, 1987), pp. 62. 185224027X
Dante and English Poetry: Shelley to T. S. Eliot (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983, rpt. 1985, 2010), pp. viii, 280, 8 illustrations. 0521251265