Early Modern

Today’s Oxford English Faculty has the largest grouping of early modern specialists in this period in the world, building on an illustrious tradition of Oxford scholars including Percy and Evelyn Simpson, the latter the first woman to be awarded a doctorate at Oxford, Dame Helen Gardner, D. F. McKenzie, A. D. Nuttall, John Carey, and Katherine Duncan-Jones. Current faculty members are engaged in a wide range of research topics, from law and literature to metaphysical prose; from Shakespeare’s classical inheritance to poetry and patronage; from John Donne’s sermons to the supernatural; from collaborations with contemporary artists to editing and the study of material texts.

A network of research seminars, regular conferences, and the cross-disciplinary Centre for Early Modern Studies provides a rich context for this research.