Dr Cathy Hume

My main current research project is on biblical poetry in Middle English.  Middle English Biblical Poetry: Romance, Audience and Tradition was published in 2021 by Boydell and Brewer: it’s a study of 6 poems, including the Gawain­­-poet’s Patience and Cleanness.  I have also published a few articles on this subject, including one in New Medieval Literatures 18 on the fifteenth-century Life of Job.   I am now starting work on a new edition of some biblical poems for TEAMS Middle English Texts, and also thinking about public engagement events.

My PhD investigated Chaucer's presentation of love and marriage relationships in relation to their social historical context, approached through letter collections and advice literature. It was published as Chaucer and the Cultures of Love and Marriage, Bristol Studies in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2012).  I continue to be broadly interested in the literature of medieval Britain and its social and cultural contexts.

I am also interested in the cognitive aspects of how readers make sense of narratives, in relation to medieval romance.  I gave a presentation to Malory 550 conference in August 2019 on how this might be a fruitful approach to Malory’s Morte, now pubilshed in Arthurian Literature.  I would be delighted to make contact with other researchers in literature and psychology who have an interest in this area.

At Bristol I am an active member of the Centre for Medieval Studies.