British and Irish Literature

British and Irish literary traditions extend from early medieval vernacular poetry to contemporary global narratives. These corpora encompass epic verse, medieval romance, Renaissance drama, Romantic poetry, the novel and modern and postmodern experimentation. Central concerns include identity formation, nationhood, colonial and postcolonial encounters, gender and sexuality, and the negotiation of form and genre. Manuscript and print cultures shape textual transmission and reception, while digital humanities tools offer new insights into canon formation and textual variants. The literature of Ireland, in both English and Irish Gaelic, contributes distinctive perspectives on diaspora, linguistic revival and cultural memory. Ongoing scholarship interrogates how authors engage with imperial legacies, global exchanges and evolving print and digital media, illuminating the enduring relevance of these writings in shaping cultural and political discourse worldwide.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have re-evaluated the concept of the Female Gothic, arguing that early women-authored narratives deploy Gothic tropes to assert agency rather than merely depict victimhood. This research traces the reception history of such texts and shows how ideological frameworks of feminist criticism have reshaped their classification. Interdisciplinary work on Romantic literature demonstrates how Rousseau’s pedagogical and philosophical ideas informed William Blake and Mary Shelley, illuminating shared motifs of paternal neglect and the creation of monstrous progeny. Meanwhile, comparative analysis of late nineteenth-century fiction reveals an intertwining of realist and Gothic modes in works such as Dracula and Thomas Hardy’s “The Fiddler of the Reels”, highlighting how authors used Gothic elements to critique contemporary social and scientific confidence while retaining a realist sensibility.

British and Irish Literature publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in british and irish literature across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Female Gothic: A critical category describing Gothic narratives by women writers, often reinterpreted as agents of genre innovation rather than mere victims of domestic oppression.

Intertextuality: The shaping of a text’s meaning by references to or influences from other texts, underscoring literary dialogues across periods and genres.

Multispectral imaging: A technique capturing manuscript images at various light wavelengths to recover faded or erased inscriptions.

Queer erasure: The removal or suppression of non-heteronormative representations in textual revisions and critical reception.

New Woman: A late nineteenth-century figure in literature representing female independence and challenges to traditional gender roles.

References

1. Was there ever a “Female Gothic”?. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2017).
2. Fathers, sons, and monsters: Rousseau, Blake, and Mary Shelley. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2019).
3. Realism, horror and the Gothic in Dracula and Thomas Hardy’s “The fiddler of the reels”. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2017).
4. Encoding Queer Erasure in Oscar Wilde’s "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Open Library of Humanities (2022).