Research directions
British Literature
Early Modern literature
John Donne
Spatial studies
John Milton
The Satanic Epic, a book published last year by Princeton University Press, sets out to read Paradise Lost from the perspective Milton provides for us, the figure of Satan, and tries to show why this is important. There are chapters on the history of Satan within the Judeo-Christian tradition, on Milton's own situation, and on such related matters as witchcraft and astronomy. The book is mainly a close reading of the poem from Satan's point of view, with students in mind
The Devil
My book, the Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth, offfers a narrative history of the devil, the opponent or adversary, from the earliest times, the Epic of Gilgamesh, up to the writer who defined Christian belief for the Middle Ages, Augustine. Further research has now been included in The Satanic Epic
Shakespeare and Film
A series of articles on films of Shakespeare plays, which use the basic languages of film as a way to read the differences of interpretation. The supernatural in Macbeth films (and the play itself) is the focus of one such article, of the supernatural in comedies another
Adaptations
Exploration of the ways in which modern writers and filmmakers use classic texts as their points of departure. Apart from work on Dickens films, this research is ongoing and has not yet been published
The English Alps
Explorations of the various links between the English and the Alps, and the ways in which the two cultures interact both historically and in present circumstances. So far only a little has been published of this research, which is being carried out in collaboration with Digby Thomas and with the Fonds National Suisse
La Construction de l'Humaine
An ongoing project, of which a long article on the Romantic Prometheus, especially Frankenstein, has now been published by Payot. This work is part of my collaboration with the Programme in Comparative literature
