Renaissance literature; Early Tudor literature; Shakespeare; Ben Jonson; Classical literatures and their influence; editing.
As a Senior Research Fellow I lecture on topics in the period 1500-1700, and am happy to undertake graduate supervision on topics in Renaissance and comparative literature, in the history of classical reception, and in any other area in which I have an interest. I do not normally offer undergraduate supervision.
I have published on a wide range of topics in the period 1500-1700, and review regularly on a many areas (including Renaissance literature and contemporary fiction) for The London Review of Books. I have edited the non-dramatic works of Ben Jonson and of Shakespeare, but my principal research interests lie in relations between English, European and Classical literatures in the period 1500-1700. My volume in the Oxford English Literary History will reappraise writing in the lifetime of Elizabeth I (1533-1603), and covers drama as well as other genres. My study of Imitation will range widely across western literary and critical traditions, from Plato to the present day. I was involved in the Scriptorium project for digitizing early modern commonplace books, which grows out of my interests in editing and manuscript studies, and as Fellow .Librarian of my College I have a growing interest in book history. I have supervised graduate students on a wide range of topics, from early Tudor poetry and religion, through studies in the reception of classical literature in the sixteenth century, through seventeenth-century poetry, to Milton and Dryden and beyond.
All Souls College website
Homepage (with full list of publications)
Podcast lecture, Milton's Singularity