Professor Peter Brown

(BA, Sussex; PhD, York)

Professor Chief Examiner
on leave autumn term 2009
Phone: 01227 827942 Office: NC 6
Email: pb2@kent.ac.uk  
InterestsPeter Brown

I have just finished a book on Chaucer and the making of optical space, Chaucer and the Making of Optical Space (Bern and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007)It examines narrative space in a range of texts by Chaucer, making use of Henri Lefebvre’s notion that individuals and cultures produce different kinds of space according to their needs and circumstances. It argues that Chaucer’s understanding and manipulation of narrative space is affected by the medieval science of optics, or perspectiva, as transmitted through scholarly treatises, encyclopedias, sermons and vernacular literature. My next book-length project is a biography of Chaucer, commissioned by Oxford University Press.  I have recently finished a five-year stint as founder Editor-in-Chief of a major on-line resource, published by Blackwell, for all periods of English and American literature, Literature Compasshttp://www.literature-compass.com/

Other research interests have included dreams, visual culture, literature and place, and historiography.

Research Supervision

Chaucer and other late medieval English writers, especially in relation to different aspects of medieval culture, including the visual arts, science, vernacular manuscripts, historiography, dreams, and the representation of space.

Professional Activities

I am general editor of the Blackwell History of English Literature (10 vols.) and editor of the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature 600-1500. I am a member of the Early English Text Society, Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature, Medieval Academy of America, Modern Language Association of America, and Fulbright Association.

Selected Publications
Books:
  • A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture c.1350-c.1500 (Blackwell, 2007)
  • with Michael Irwin Literature and Place 1800-2000 (Peter Lang, 2006)
  • A Companion to Chaucer (Blackwell, 2000)
  • Reading Dreams: The Interpretation of Dreams from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Oxford University Press, 1999)
  • Chaucer at Work: The Making of the Canterbury Tales (Longman, 1994)
  • with Andrew Butcher The Age of Saturn: Literature and History in the Canterbury Tales (Blackwell, 1991)
  • The Index of Middle English Prose, Handlist 5: British Library Additional Manuscripts 10001-12000 (Brewer, 1988)
Some Recent Chapters and Articles:

Topics covered in various essays and articles include:

  • guides to Chaucer
  • the literary identity of Canterbury from the Middle Ages to the present day
  • medieval privies and the Miller's Tale
  • the Hengwrt manuscript of the Canterbury Tales
  • the iconography of the Castle of Jalousie in the Romance of the Rose
  • a scientific treatise on the Seven Planets
  • pilgrimage and the prologue to the Tale of Beryn Higden's Polychronicon.