Current PhD Students

Aubrey Williams

Thesis Title:

To Know, Hope, or Accept: Sublime Bodies in Second Wave Romantic Poetry

Supervisor:

Professor Jon Mee

Description:

Why are we so drawn to waterfalls, glaciers, mountains, and other sublime bodies of nature? How do we interact with them, and why do we need them?

I’m a 3 rd -year PhD student specialising in the sublime, dark ecocriticism, and speculative realism in British Romanticism. My thesis focusses on Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley in relation to the sublime— particularly in nature— and their divergence from the more familiar Wordsworthian idea of nature. I find the poets to be in a sort-of dialogue or debate regarding whether humans are in fact a part of nature, why we need nature, and whether nature “cares” about us.

Importantly, I contend the sublime is frequently used by Byron and Shelley to demonstrate the pull natural bodies have on us, and to attempt to overcome the barriers we have by virtue of being human. I also consider the sublime in human spaces, such as ruins, cities, and prisons, and the difference between it versus in nature. I trace Byron and Shelley’s journeys in the Alps, moreover, and consider their appreciation of Jean Jacques Rousseau. I find that Byron and Shelley, while more pessimistic and optimistic respectively about the human-nature connection, both sympathetically appreciate nature for what it is and for the fascination it elicits without over-romanticising it. The darker, unsettling, and uncanny aspects of nature, including its seeming infinite being, hold much more interest for the younger poets than the previous generation of Romantics, and speak to a desire
to confront things in our existence that are challenging, uncomfortable, and difficult.

I am fortunate enough to be presenting a paper at the upcoming British Association for Romantic Studies at their international conference in July. My paper treats aspects of Lord Byron’s engagement with contemporary scientific literature, specifically on fossils, geology, and extinction events, highlighting the scientific literacy practised by one of our most important poets, as well as the influence of such theories in various poems of his. At York, I previously worked for Professor Rachael Scarborough King, visiting from California, as a research assistant on the Tuke family’s letters as part of the Ballitore Papers Online project.

I previously studied Celtic at Prifysgol Aberystwyth University (BaHons), before relocating upon graduation to the Netherlands to study English at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Here I achieved both my second BA and my Research Masters (cum laude), whereupon I specialised in the sublime in Romanticism, with a particular focus on space such as mountains, prisons, and ruins. I lectured at Groningen between 2020-2023 in the Department of English, teaching a variety of courses including modern literature, essay composition, presenting research,
literary theory, and the changes in English literature from 1550 until the present day.

I currently work as a freelance English teacher and accent coach, using a variety of techniques from theatre and speech therapy. I am also a published sci-fi author (take a look at my stories on 365tomorrows.com!) and voice actor.