Research areas
Chris Jones has wide research interests in English-language poetry, especially that of the Middle Ages and its reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has written on Beowulf as well as on Old and Early Middle English poetry more generally, the 'earliest surviving poem' in Scots, Tennyson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Morris, Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, W. S. Graham, Edwin Morgan, Seamus Heaney and Basil Bunting. Chris is interested in reception, influence and poetic technique and also works on the phenomenon of Medievalism: the reception and adaptation of the Middle Ages in the post-medieval world. Chris is a commissioning co-editor for Boydell & Brewer's Book Series 'Medievalism', and co-editor of The Middle Ages in the Modern World (OUP, 2017).
His monograph Strange Likeness: the Use of Old English in Twentieth-century Poetry (OUP, 2006) was shortlisted for the ESSE best book prize of 2007 (reviews). His most recent monograph is Fossil Poetry: Anglo-Saxon and Linguistic Nativism in Nineteenth-century Poetry (OUP, 2018) (reviews). He has been awarded research grants and Fellowships for his work from the AHRC (2006), The Leverhulme Trust (2007), The Carnegie Trust (2009), The Australian Academy of the Humanities (2009), The Royal Society of Edinburgh (2011), and The British Academy (2013). In 2013 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Young Academy of Scotland. He has appeared on BBC Radio on several occasions to talk about medieval poetry, including a discussion with Melvyn Bragg of The Ruthwell Cross Poem, which was selected as BBC's 'Pick of the Week'. He was co-writer and contributor on an award-winning iPad app version of Seamus Heaney's translations of the Scottish poet Robert Henryson's Fables (also broadcast on BBC). Chris has also written for the Guardian, on the occasion of Tony Blair's resignation from office, for the RSE on whether ISIS is 'medieval', and for the Times Higher Education on the arts of foraging. Chris is a Fellow of the English Association.
Selected publications
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Fossil poetry: Anglo-Saxon and linguistic nativism in nineteenth-century poetry
Jones, C., 24 Aug 2018, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 312 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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The Middle Ages in the modern world: twenty-first century perspectives
Bildhauer, B. M. (ed.) & Jones, C. (ed.), 28 Sept 2017, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 384 p. (Proceedings of the British Academy; vol. 208)Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Strange Likeness: The Use of Old English in Twentieth-century Poetry
Jones, C., 2006, Oxford University Press. 266 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book