Tom Revell

I completed by BA in English at the University of Leicester (with a Year Abroad at Universität Leipzig), before undertaking my MSt in English (650-1550) at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.
Now at Balliol College, Oxford, my DPhil project addresses the understanding and appreciation of compositional techniques in Old English poetry. Rather than focusing on decades-old notions of oral-formulaic composition and transmission, it is the literariness of Anglo-Saxon poetry and its aesthetics, its intertextuality, and its reception which are the areas of knowledge my investigations aim to promote.
Identifying and analysing a variety of compositional techniques including borrowing, echoing, paralleling and other intertextual interactions in vernacular poetic hagiography shows poets responding critically and imaginatively to preexisting texts, and supplements the understanding and enjoyment of these texts for both contemporary and modern critical audiences. How these approaches might also apply to other medieval poetry in other vernaculars is of great interest to me.
I am also passionate about Outreach, Widening Participation, and Public Engagement with Research, coming from a working-class background in the North-East of England, very grateful to receive my AHRC-DTP Studentship.