Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
My research focuses on poetry and poetics of the nineteenth century. Poets I have written on include Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. In recent essays I’ve been examining the poetical history of bees as figures for the poet and how she works. You can hear me talking about the literary salience of bees, alongside experts in biology and apiculture, in an episode of Radio 4’s Natural Histories programme, ‘Bee’.
Poetry's what I most often write about, but I’m also interested in the formal and stylistic features of prose and have written on prose works by authors including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and Oscar Wilde.
Other interests include rhetoric, aesthetic philosophy (from ancient classical writers through to the nineteenth century), nineteenth-century versions of the ancient quarrel, Victorian forms of poetical faith, and, relatedly, the poetical fortunes of sincerity as a principle of success or standard of judgement.
I’m a life member of The Tennyson Society (which I love) and member of the Editorial Board. You can find out about The Tennyson Society here, and you can access a fascinating free series of ‘Global Tennyson Talks’, delivered on Zoom by a group of leading international scholars, here.
I have supervised two prize-winning PhD students (working on Tennyson) and advised many more. I welcome research proposals on any aspect of nineteenth-century poetry, and/or on the following authors: Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, George Eliot, Arthur Hugh Clough, Matthew Arnold, C. G. Rossetti, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Michael Field (aka Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper).
Contact details
Room 2.15, 3-5 Woodland Rd. Tel: +44(0)117 92 89196. Email: jane.wright@bristol.ac.uk
Teaching
I have taught literature, from 1550 to the present, across a wide range of units. Recently taught units include:
- Approaches to Poetry (level 1)
- Literature 1740-1900 (level 2)
- Aesthetic Possibilities (level 3 / MA)
- Victorian Materialities (level 3 / MA)
- Victorian Literature and Place (MA)
- Animal Planet: Humans and Other Animals in Modernity (MA)
In 2008, I received the Bristol Faculty of Arts 'Rising Star Award' for excellence in teaching, and in 2010 I was student-nominated a 'Best of Bristol' lecturer. In 2017, I was nominated in the Outstanding Teaching category of the Bristol Student-led Teaching Awards.
Academic service
Since 2006, I have served on many committees, panels, and working parties at Department, School, Faculty, and University levels. I have convened units in the English Department, served as Department Library Officer and Web Officer, and coordinated the English Department Research Seminar. More recently, I have been a member of the Committees for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity, in the School of Humanities and the Faculty of Arts. I have also served in the following roles:
- 2019-2022 - Academic Member of Senate
- 2015-2017 - Deputy Head of School and Education Director (Humanities)
- 2012-2014 - Director of Exams (English)
- 2010-2012 - Tutor for Admissions (English)
Other activities
- Since 2016: Co-founder and member of the Arts Research Cluster 'Global Feminisms' (please see link at top of page).
- Since 2014: Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
- Since 2012: member of the Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU).
- Since 2002: member of the Editorial Board of The Tennyson Research Bulletin (Reviews Editor 2004 - 2010).
Keywords
- Alfred Tennyson
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Robert Browning
- Oscar Wilde
- Michael Field
- Poetry
- Poetics
- Bees
- Allusion
- Form
- Style
- Practical Criticism
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
- Nineteenth-century literature
- Victorian literature
- Victorian poetry
- Scholarly editing
- Aesthetics
- Continental Philosophy & Aesthetics
Fingerprint
- 1 Similar Profiles
Projects
- 1 Finished
Research output
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Barrett Browning's Enduring Bees
Wright, J., 30 Apr 2020, In: Essays in Criticism. p. 178-198 21 p., cgaa004.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus)27 Downloads (Pure) -
The Princess and the Bee
Wright, J., 1 Sept 2015, In: Cambridge Quarterly. 44, 3, p. 251-273 23 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review
4 Citations (Scopus) -
Tennyson's Bees
Wright, J., 30 Nov 2015, In: The Tennyson Research Bulletin. 10, 4, p. 321-339 19 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review
Activities
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Bee, Natural Histories, BBC Radio 4
Jane Wright (Interviewee)
24 Oct 2019Activity: Other activity types › Media coverage or participation
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Tennyson Conference, University of Oxford
Jane Wright (Keynote/plenary speaker)
29 Mar 2019 → 31 Mar 2019Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Invited talk
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Nineteenth-Century Research Seminar, School of English, Drama, and American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham
Jane Wright (Invited speaker)
8 May 2019Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Invited talk