Newcastle University

Research

I have just completed an edition of The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick with Tom Cain, which is currently in press and  due for publication in October 2013. As a result of this project I have developed an interest in miscellany poetics and in the 'Sons of Ben'. My other interests lie in the field of early modern women's writing, particularly life-writing; the letter and diary forms; early modern political discourses and private devotional practices. In investigating this I have focussed particularly on the Boyle family, the Earls of Cork, but especially on the writings of Katherine Boyle Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh (1614-91) and Mary Boyle Rich, Countess of Warwick (1624-1678). 

I am currently working on a monograph about  believability and credibility in early modern literature, with a particular focus on the editing of life-writing and have completed a piece on the 'Sons of Ben' for the Oxford Handbook to Ben Jonson.

Future Research

Newcastle's history as a centre for chapbook production as part of a larger collaborative project to document the history of the North-East as a nationally significant site for literary production.

The poetry of Richard Lovelace

Miscellany poetics 

Other Expertise

Editing manuscript poetry; editorial theory; the influence of the the themes of community and friendship on the composition and reception of Stuart poetry.

Sibling and familial relationships in the early modern period; early modern conversion narratives; seventeenth-century autobiography

Research Roles

I am one of the co-convenors of the Medieval and Early Modern Research group at Newcastle. We are interdisciplinary, hold monthly seminars and host guest speakers. We have a particular interest in supporting outreach and engagement work with archives, scholarly editing and digital humanities.  Our website is here: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/mems/

Esteem Indicators

IRCHSS Funded Doctoral student (2001-2005)

Pforzheimer Visiting fellow at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas (September 2008)

Visting Fellow, Folger Shakespeare Library, (October 2008)

Undergraduate

Third Year 

 SEL 3303: Writing Rebellion: Literature and the English Revolution

Second Year (UG)

SEL 2201: Writing the Renaissance

SEL 2010: Independent Research Project 

First Year (UG)

SEL 1004 Introduction to Literary Studies 2

SEL 1023 Transformations

Postgraduate

MA

SEl 8188  Reading the Past II

SEL 8353 Manuscript, Print, Digital

SEL 8354 Cultures of Collecting 

 PhD Supervision

I am currently co-supervising a PhD on nonconformist literature post-1660 and welcome students interested in writing from this period or in seventeenth-century poetry, c. 1600-1650; manuscript culture; editing; women's writing, particularly life-writing and the relationship between gender, knowledge and authority in the early modern period.

• Connolly R. The Complete Works of Robert Herrick. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013. In Press.
• Cain T, Connolly R, ed. Lords of Wine and Oile: Community and Conviviality in the Poetry of Robert Herrick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Connolly R, Cain T. 'Herrick's Communities of Manuscript and Print'. In: Cain, T., Connolly, R, ed. Lords of Wine and Oile: Community and Conviviality in the Poetry of Robert Herrick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Connolly R. Print, Miscellaneity and the Reader in Robert Herrick's Hesperides. In: Allen, G., Griffin, C., O'Connell, M, ed. Readings on Audience and Textual Materiality. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2011.
• Connolly R. Viscountess Ranelagh and the Authorisation of Women's Knowledge in the Hartlib Circle. In: Harris, J; Scott-Baumann, E, ed. The Intellectual Culture of Puritan Women, 1558-1680. London: Palgrave Macmillian, 2010, pp.150-161.
• Connolly R. New Approaches to the Work of Robert Herrick. Literature Compass 2009, 6(6), 1177-1187.
• Connolly R. A Proselytising Protestant Commonwealth: The Religious and Political Ideals of Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh. The Seventeenth Century 2008, 23(2), 244-264.
• Connolly R. 'A Wise and Godly Sybilla':Viscountess Ranelagh and the Politics of International Protestantism. In: Brown, S, ed. Women, Gender and Radical Religion in Early Modern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp.285-306.
• Connolly R. A Manuscript Treatise of Viscountess Ranelagh (1614-1691). Notes and Queries 2006, 53(2), 170-172.
• Windram H, Connolly Ruth, Howe Chris. ' "Thinking Bibliogeographically": Phylogenetic Analyses and Systems of Manuscript Circulation'. English Manuscript Studies 2012.
• Connolly R. 'Editing the Scribal Editors: Presenting Herrick's Manuscript Poetry in Print'. Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 2012.
• Connolly R. 'Robert Herrick', 'Mary Rich' and 'Lady Jane Cavendish'. In: Blackwell Renaissance Encyclopedia. Routledge, 2012. In Preparation.
• Connolly R. Introduction: Community and Conviviality in the Works of Robert Herrick. In: Connolly, R; Cain, T, ed. Lords of Wine and Oile : Community and Conviviality in the Poetry of Robert Herrick. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Connolly R. The 'Sons' of Ben. In: E. Giddens, ed. The Oxford Handbook to Ben Jonson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. In Press.