DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
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About the Department
Research
Part-time study
Dr Jane Griffiths
Lecturer
Room: G.12
Tel: 0117 928 9850
Email: jane.griffiths@bristol.ac.uk
Research Interests
My general research interests include medieval and renaissance poetry and poetics, and concepts of literary authority; John Skelton and Stephen Hawes; marginal glossing; early printed books; and the reception of medieval works in the renaissance. I am also a practising poet.
At present I am working on a study of the marginal gloss in England in the early decades of print. Its main focus will be the relation between the gloss and textual authority, tracing the adoption into literary practice of both formal commentary traditions and informal practices of annotation by individual readers of manuscripts.
Books
(Academic)
- John Skelton and Poetic Authority: Defining the Liberty to Speak. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2006. 213 pp.
(Poetry)
- Another Country: New & Selected Poems. Tarset: Bloodaxe Books. 2008. (shortlisted for the Forward Prize)
- Icarus on Earth. Tarset: Bloodaxe Books. 2005.
- A Grip on Thin Air. Tarset: Bloodaxe Books. 2000.
- The House. Hitchin: Mandeville Press. 1990.
Forthcoming
(Academic)
- Diverting Authorities: The Marginal Gloss from Manuscript to Print. Oxford University Press.
(Poetry)
- Terrestrial Variations. Tarset: Bloodaxe Books. 2012.
Articles
- 'The Object of Allegory: Truth and Prophecy in Stephen Hawes's Conforte of Lovers', in Medieval Allegory. ed. Mary Carr, Kenneth Clarke, and Marco Nievergelt. Cambridge: Scholars Press, 2008.
- '"Exhortacioun to the Reder": the Glossing of Douglas's Eneados in Trinity College MS Gale O.3.12'. In English Manuscript Studies 15: Tudor Manuscripts: 1485-1603. Edited by A. S. G. Edwards. 2009. pp. 185-97.
- '“An ende of an old song”: Middle English Lyric and the Skeltonic'’. The Review of English Studies 60. 2009 pp. 705-22.
- '"Having the Last Word": Manuscript, Print, and the Envoy in the Poetry of John Skelton', in The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Literature, 1485-1603. ed. Mike Pincombe and Cathy Shrank. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
- 'Counterfet Countenaunce: Disguisings and Double Identities in Tudor Morality Plays', The Yearbook of English Studies. ed. Andrew Hiscock. Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2008.
- 'Voicing the Commonplace: Emblem, Interpretation, and Civil Society in William Bullein's Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence.' Interfaces. Vol. 26. 2007. pp. 83-94.
- 'Katharine Adams.' The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. ed. Colin Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004. Vol. 1. pp. 246-7.
- 'William Petre' (revision of existing article). The New Dictionary of National Biography. ed. Colin Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004. Vol. 43. p. 916.
- 'Roger Powell.' The New Dictionary of National Biography. ed. Colin Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004. Vol. 45. pp. 118-19.
- 'Edward Sheldon' (revision of existing article). The New Dictionary of National Biography. ed. Colin Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004. Vol. 50. p. 178.
- 'Agnes Wenman.' The New Dictionary of National Biography. ed. Colin Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004. Vol. 58. pp. 111-12.
- ‘Text and Authority: John Stow's 1568 Edition of Skelton's Works', in John Stow: Author, Editor and Reader. ed. Ian Gadd and Alexandra Gillespie. London: British Library. 2004. pp. 127-34.
- 'What’s in a Name? The Transmission of “John Skelton, Laureate” in Manuscript and Print', Huntington Library Quarterly 67:2, 2004. pp. 215-35.
- '“Shredis of Sentence”: Skelton's Speke Parrot and Humanist Teaching Methods', Medievalia et Humanistica, Vol. 30. 2003. pp. 1-14.
- 'A Contradiction in Terms: Skelton's “effecte energiall” in A Replycacion', Renaissance Studies 17:1, 2003. pp. 55-68.
- 'The Matter of Invention in Hawes' Passetyme of Pleasure', in 'Nothing but papers, my lord': Studies in Early Modern English Language and Literature. ed. J. L. Bueno Alonso et al. Vigo: University of Vigo. 2003. pp. 101-10.
- 'The Grammarian as “Poeta” and “Vates”: Self-Presentation in the AntiBossicon', in Self-Presentation and Social Identification: The Rhetoric and Pragmatics of Letter-Writing in Early Modern Times. ed. Toon van Houdt, Jan Papy and Gilbert Tournoy. Leuven: Leuven University Press. 2001. pp. 317-36.
- (with Edmund Weiner) 'Word Searchers: Historians and the Oxford English Dictionary', History Today 50:4. April 2000. pp. 34-35.
Forthcoming
- ‘“Ficta sub imagine texta”: John Skelton and George Gascoigne’. In Proceedings of the George Gascoigne Seminar. Ed. Gillian Austen. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
- '“Divers of Langage”: the 'Macaronic' Glossing of Skelton’s Speke Parrot.' Proceedings of the WUN Multilingualism Conference. Ed. Judith Jefferson and Ad Putter.
- ‘The Bowge of Court, or What You Will: Reading and Seeing in Skelton's “Interlude”.' Medieval English Theatre.
- 'Lusty Iuventus.' In The Oxford Handbook to Tudor Drama. Edited by Tom Betteridge and Greg Walker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 'John Skelton''. In The Encyclopedia for English Renaissance Literature. Ed. Alan Stewart and Garrett Sullivan. Wiley-Blackwell.
- 'Stephen Hawes.' In The Encyclopedia for English Renaissance Literature. Ed. Alan Stewart and Garrett Sullivan. Wiley-Blackwell.
Book Reviews
I have reviewed for The Library, Modern Philology, Notes & Queries, Poetry Review, Oxford Poetry, and the TLS.
Poetry Publications
Individual poems
Numerous poems published in magazines and newspapers, including the Edinburgh Review, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Review, The Rialto, The SHOp, the Saturday Guardian, Thumbscrew, and the TLS; and in anthologies including Being Alive, ed. Neil Astley (2004); Identity Parade, ed. Roddy Lumsden (2010); Reactions: New Poetry, ed. Esther Morgan (2000); Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 1992-2001 (2001); and Staying Alive, ed. Neil Astley (2003).
Editorships
- (with Graham Nelson and Jennifer Nuttall) Oxford Poetry 11:1 (Winter 2000).
- (with Giles Scupham) Owl Vols. 1-9 (1989-1992).
Teaching
- Approaches to Poetry (level 1; lectures and tutorials)
- Literature 1, 1200-1540 (level 2; lectures and tutorials)
- Approaches to Shakespeare (level 1; lectures and tutorials)
- How Poets Work (level 3 / MA; seminars)
- Literature 2 (level 2; lectures and tutorials)
- Poets and the Court (level 3/MA; seminars)
- Modern and Contemporary Poetry (MA; seminars)
- Court and City: Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature (MA; seminars)