Felicity Brown

Thesis Title: Staging the Arthurian legend in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean England, c.1575-1610

Supervisors: Professor Laura Ashe & Professor Paulina Kewes

Research Interests: My research is about how performance, politics, and literature intersect in material texts and the ways this can shape understandings of nation, periodisation, and canonicity. Particular areas of interest include adaptations of the Arthurian legend, Shakespearean cultural capital, the life and work of John Dryden, and any and all miniature books.
 
 

Doctoral Research: My DPhil thesis reconsidered the significance of the Arthurian legend in early modern England. It presents an original account of King Arthur and his storyworld as a site of political, social, and artistic play. In it, I expand established conceptions of the genres, people, and institutions considered part of literary history while offering a new narrative about the negotiation of political and poetic authority in Elizabethan England.

Teaching: I teach literature in English between 1550-1760, although I do occasionally teach fourteenth and nineteenth century literature as well. I am currently a lecturer at Christ Church and St Peter's colleges, but I have also taught at Jesus, Somerville and St Anne's.

Select Publications:

'A Chivalric Show of Civic Virtue: The Society of Prince Arthur's Archers', The Review of English Studies, 73 (2022), 43-58.

'Sourcing Misfortunes: Translation and Tragedy at Gray's Inn', Early Theatre, 24.4 (2021), 157-70.

https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/staff/dr-felicity-brown