Nathan Hunt

Profile

Summary: seventeenth century literature; intellectual history; satire; reception studies; early modern religion; manuscript and print culture.

Research Interests

My principle research interests are in the literary culture of Restoration England. More specifically, my PhD thesis examines the role played by Restoration satire in the development of English literary criticism. Principle writers in my research include John Dryden, the Earl of Rochester, Samuel Butler, and Matthew Prior. A significant section of my thesis is dedicated to the early critical essays of Thomas Shadwell.

I am especially interested in the intertextuality of seventeenth century literature, and how this forms networks of textual dialogues in manuscript and print. Restoration literature in particular is consciously self-referential, with writers sharing a critical vocabulary to define theoretical principles they could not always agree on. By observing how satirical texts encompass and intersect this vibrant exchange of ideas, my work demonstrates how satire develops into a self-reflective and intellectual mode of literary debate. Reception studies forms a major part of my research, which focuses on modern re-appropriations of classical precepts and images, and the use of the classics as a model for contemporary learning.

Teaching: 

Level 1: Drama: Reading and Interpretation
Level 2: Renaissance Literature

Conference Papers, Seminars, and Other Activities

For the academic year 2019-2020 I will be co-convener for the Postgraduate Research Seminar here at the University of Leeds.

‘Transforming translation: early modern publishers and the shaping of verse translation’, The People of Print: printers, stationers, and booksellers 1500-1830, Sheffield Hallam University, 2019

‘The politics of translation: translation theory during the Exclusion Crisis’, Interdisciplinary early modern research colloquium, University of Sheffield, 2019

‘The Enthusiasm of Dryden’s Ovid’, Postgraduate Research Seminar, Leeds, 2019

‘To “gratifie and oblige posterity”: interpreting Horace’s Ars Poetica in Restoration England’, Postgraduate Research Seminar, Leeds, 2018

Awards

Douglas Jefferson School of English Scholarship 2017-20, University of Leeds

Qualifications

• BA (with Hons)
• MA (distinction)