Early Modern Literature
English Literature research theme
Our research in early modern literature considers literary and cultural forms in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
We work on textual cultures, book history and editorial practice. Our projects include major editions of John Donne’s sermons and Aphra Behn’s poetry, while our research draws new attention to ephemeral forms such as letters and diaries.
We emphasise the movement of texts and ideas, including women's writing, literary communities, translation and printing technologies. Our analysis of early modern English cultures explores intellectual history, humanism and the history of emotions, along with perceptions of paganism and the place of religious texts such as the Bible.Our approach spans centuries, exploring the influence of classical figures and reception of medieval and early modern writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Jonson.
Researchers
- Professor Hugh Adlington - Early modern print and manuscript culture
- Dr Peter Auger - literature, mobility and translation
- Dr Emily Buffey - literary reception, early modern print culture, women’s writing
- Dr Sheldon Brammall - classical reception, translation, epic, and the history of classical scholarship
- Dr Jennie Challinor - Restoration drama and poetry, early modern manuscript and court cultures
- Dr Louise Curran - Material forms and textual meanings
- Professor David Griffith - Textual and visual cultures
- Dr Nick Hardy - sixteenth and seventeenth century literary and intellectual history
- Dr Toria Johnson - early modern subjectivity, and the history of emotions
- Professor Tom Lockwood - Relationships between Renaissance writers and their later readers
- Dr Will Sharpe - textual editing and collaborative authorship of Shakespeare’s plays
- Dr Hazel Wilkinson - eighteenth-century literature and print culture, reception of early modern literature, book history and digital humanities
- Dr Emily Wingfield - Manuscript studies and book history
- Professor Gillian Wright - Early modern women's writing
Honorary and Emerita
- Professor Valerie Rumbold - Early eighteenth century poetry and prose
- Professor Wendy Scase - Textual cultures and early printing