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Academic Insights for the Thinking World

"Macbeth Before Shakespeare" by Benjamin Hudson, published by Oxford University Press

Macbeth, King James, and biting the hand that feeds you?

Possibly the most dangerous play William Shakespeare wrote was The Tragedie of Macbeth.  The drama is packed with illegality: assassination of kings; prophecies about kings; supernatural women; and necromancy. To add to the danger, Shakespeare’s employer, King James, was a prickly patron of the performing arts and notorious for his sensitivity to slights, real and perceived. […]

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"Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History" by Mary M. Burke, published by Oxford University Press

A Black Irish-American rejoinder to Gone With The Wind: Frank Yerby’s The Foxes of Harrow

“The Foxes of Harrow” (1946), a Southern historical romance by Black Irish-American author Frank Yerby (1916–1991), writes back to Margaret Mitchell’s bestselling novel, “Gone with the Wind” (1936). Although Yerby and Mitchell were both raised in Georgia during segregation by mothers of Irish descent, their socially assigned racial identities created divergent approaches to representing the pre- and post-Civil War South in their respective novels.

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The Review of English Studies, published by Oxford University Press

Finding Jane Austen in history

In the anniversary year marking 100 years since the publication of R. W. Chapman’s OUP edition of “The Novels of Jane Austen”, Kathryn Sutherland (Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts, OUP 2018) examines the call to reassess the contribution made to the edition by Chapman’s wife, Katharine Metcalfe.

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Scottish Poetry, 1730-18-30, edited by Daniel Cook - Oxford World's Classics, OUP

After Burns: recovering Scottish poetry

Scottish poetry produced in the long eighteenth century might strike you as at once familiar and unknown. Hundreds of poets, balladists, and songwriters born or raised in Scotland throughout the long eighteenth century need to find new readerships.

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Is Sheridan Le Fanu's "Uncle Silas" an Irish novel? Claire Connolly, editor of "Uncle Silas" (OUP, 2022) explores the question in this OUPblog post.

Is Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas an Irish novel?

When Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Uncle Silas” appeared in 1864, its author was best known as the proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine and a writer of Irish historical novels. Yet, as advised by his publisher, Le Fanu had produced a work of fiction situated not in the Irish past but the English present.

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A Winter Breviary by Rebecca Gayle Howell and Reena Esmail

A Winter Breviary: Q&A with poet Rebecca Gayle Howell

A Winter Breviary is a triptych of carols that tells the story of a person walking in the woods on solstice night. This pilgrim—she, he, they—searches for hope, the hope they cannot name, or hear or see. And still, they walk deeper and deeper into the dark.

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Nine literary New Year’s resolutions

Do you need some inspiration for your New Year’s resolutions? If you’re in a resolution rut and feeling some of that winter gloom, then you’re not alone. To help you on your way to an exciting start to 2017, we’ve enlisted the help of some of history’s greatest literary and philosophical figures–on their own resolutions, and inspiring thoughts for the New Year.

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Moby Dick Oxford World's Classics

Weird Moby-Dick

There are a lot of peculiar phrases in Moby-Dick. My new introduction to the second Oxford World’s Classics edition of Herman Melville’s novel highlights the startling weirdness of the book, both in its literary form and its language.

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