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Byrne, Dr Aisling
Job Title: Fitzjames Research Fellow in Old and Middle English
College: Merton
Period/ Subject: Medieval
Email address: aisling.byrne@ell.ox.ac.uk
Research Interests:
My primary research interest is the literature of medieval England. My doctoral thesis was entitled The Otherworlds of Medieval Insular Literature and explored accounts of supernatural realms from medieval Britain and Ireland. I am particularly interested in medieval romance and have published on the transmission and translation of specific romances and on themes such as identity, feasting, chivalry and territorial politics.
Much of my work seeks to situate writing from medieval England within an insular context. I am currently working on a monograph that investigates how Scotland, Wales and Ireland are imagined by medieval English writers.
Smaller projects include a series of articles on the circulation and translation of texts of English origin in Ireland, in particular, romance narratives and the works of Gerald of Wales.
Teaching Areas:
Old and Middle English papers
Recent Publications:
- “The Intruder at the Feast: Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Insular Romance”, Arthurian Literature 27 (2010), 33-57.
- “West is East: The Irish Saracens in Of Arthour and of Merlin”, Nottingham Medieval Studies 55 (2011), 221-232.
- “Arthur’s Refusal to Eat: Ritual and Control in the Romance Feast”, Journal of Medieval History 37 (2011), 62-74.
- “The Squeezed Middle: Review of Douglas Gray, ed., From the Norman Conquest to the Black Death: An Anthology of Writings from England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)”, The Cambridge Quarterly 40 (2011), 362-368.
- “Faithful Teate's Ter Tria as an Influence on Edward Taylor”, Notes & Queries 59 (2012), forthcoming.
- "Family, Locality and Nationality: Vernacular Adaptations of the Expugnatio Hibernica from Late Medieval Ireland", Medium Aevum 81 (2012), forthcoming.
- “English Heroes in Fifteenth-Century Ireland: Reading the Irish Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton”, in Insular Romance: Contexts & Traditions, ed. Ken Rooney (Cambridge: D.S Brewer, 2012), forthcoming.
- “The King's Champion: Re-enacting Arthurian Romance at the English Coronation Banquet”, English Studies 94 (2013), forthcoming.
Other Information:
www.merton.ox.ac.uk