I teach literature of the late modern period (c.1750-present), as well as courses in Practical Criticism & Critical Practice, Lyric, The History and Theory of Literary Criticism, and Literature and the Ethical Imagination.
The authors of the English Renaissance are giants of the imagination: Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth I, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Aphra Behn, John Milton, John Dryden… I enjoy teaching enormously and do so inside the classroom and further afield, on poetry walks, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, in the cinema, and in the theatre. It was then that all the world became a stage inside that magical wooden O on the banks of the Thames and it was then that, through optic glass, the Tuscan Artist viewed the moon…what a time to be alive! The English writers of that period soaked up the electrifying atmosphere and pushed the English literary language to become a rival to the great literatures of Europe: ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and early modern Italy, France, and Spain. It was the time of Aldus Manutius’ printing house in Venice, the translation of the King James Bible, and George Sandy’s Virginian Ovid (the beginning of American literature?). I love the excitement and international flair of the early modern period.
I teach Practical Criticism & Critical Practice, Tragedy, and English literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, including Shakespeare. Students working with me on the medieval paper at Part I of the English Tripos will encounter Green Knights, visionary women, lovelorn heroes, and - my favourite bit! - real medieval manuscripts housed in Trinity’s Wren Library. My publications and current research interests address topics from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, with an emphasis on songs, texts, books, and liturgies from Britain and France. I am a historian of music and literature, and of their theories, material supports, and social practices. Angela Leighton (Senior Research Fellow) and Adrian Poole (Emeritus Professor) play a significant role in the life of English at Trinity too, as do the College’s Junior Research Fellows: currently, Clare Walker Gore, Allison Neal, Dan Sperrin, and Jitka Stollova. They are also Directors of Studies – the person who helps you choose and organise your particular path through the undergraduate course.
Hurley, Deirdre Serjeantson, and Anne Toner. Most of the teaching at Trinity is undertaken by Sean Curran, Anna-Maria Hartmann, Michael D. Enriching the study of English beyond the classroom. We enjoy taking students to the Wren Library and showing them some of the treasures from its collection as a way of thinking beyond the printed pages of modern editions: how might our approach to a handwritten manuscript be distinctive? how different would it be to read a book that was two inches or two feet in length? Some students discover a love for working with rare books, and in recent years have used the resources of the Wren to write essays on Dryden’s libretti and eighteenth-century adaptations of Shakespeare. We are proud of this tradition and keen to share it with students who appreciate studying literature in this inspiring environment. While Trinity has been renowned for its traditions of scientific excellence since the days of Bacon and Newton, its former students also include a litany of outstanding writers: George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, Lord Byron, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Vladimir Nabokov, Thom Gunn, and nearer the present now, Jonathan Coe and Anjali Joseph.