Archie Cornish

Thesis Title: 'Spatial allegory in the poetry of Edmund Spenser'

Supervisor: Professor Colin Burrow

Research Interests: Sixteenth century literature; allegory; Edmund Spenser; spatiality and representations of architecture and landscape; ecocriticism and writing of the environment; poetic form, especially rhyme; illness and the body; representations of Ireland; Seamus Heaney and twentieth century poetry.

Doctoral Research: My thesis examines the spatial aspects of allegory, and the consequences of rendering abstract concepts in spatial worlds. With a focus on Spenser, it traces his use of classical sources to construct allegorical places, such as caves and houses; considering personification, I argue that the feigned bodies of allegorical personages might usefully be thought of as places.