Staff Profile
Professor Michael Rossington
Professor of Romantic Literature
- Personal Website: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/elll/staff/profile/michaelrossington.html#background
- Address: School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics
Percy Building
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
Consultation & Feedback Hours
Wednesdays 11-12
Thursdays 10-12
Roles in the School
Postgraduate Research Director
Director of PhD and MPhil Degree Programmes
Member of Executive Board and Research Committee
Teaching and supervision of undergraduate students, mainly in writing of the Romantic period.
Supervision of Postgraduate Research Students (MLitt, PhD).
Biography
BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature and MA, University of Oxford.
DPhil in English Literature, University of Oxford.
Junior Research Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford.
Lecturer in Literature, The Open University.
Lecturer in English Literature, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Professor of Romantic Literature, Newcastle University.
Memberships
Friend of Newcastle University Library.
Friend of the Bodleian Library.
Friend of the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association.
Friend of the Wordsworth Trust.
Expertise
Writing of the Romantic period in English, especially poetry;
The writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley;
The writings of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley;
British writers and continental Europe in the Romantic period;
Textual editing, manuscript studies and bibliography.
Current Project
A monograph on Percy Shelley.
Future Project
With Dr Ruth Abbott (Cambridge), an edition of The Poems of Wordsworth for the Longman Annotated English Poets series (Routledge).
Visiting Positions
Visiting Scholar, Trinity College, Cambridge (2016); Visiting Fellow, Exeter College, Oxford (2015); Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California (2014); Visiting Fellow, St Catherine's College, Oxford (2012); Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford (2006); Visiting Scholar, St John's College, Oxford (1995).
External Funding
British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (2018-20); Modern Humanities Research Association Research Associateship (2014-15); British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (2008); Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Leave Scheme award (2006-7); Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Grant (Co-Investigator) (2002-7); Arts and Humanities Research Board Research Leave Scheme award (1998-9): British Academy Small Research Grant (1998); British Academy Small Research Grant (1991).
General Editorship
General Editor of the Longman Annotated English Poets series (Routledge) with Professor Paul Hammond (Leeds) and Professor Cathy Shrank (Sheffield).
Peer Review College membership
Member of UKRI Talent Peer Review College
Advisory Boards and Editorial Committees
L'Analisi Linguistica e Letteraria; Lingue e Culture; The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Oxford University Press); The Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns (Oxford University Press); The Oxford Edition of the Writings of Alexander Pope (Oxford University Press); The Oxford Works of Mary Shelley (Oxford University Press); The Reception of British and Irish Authors in Europe (Bloomsbury); The Shelley-Godwin Archive.
Public Engagement
#Shelley200 Roundtable: Epipsychidion (2021); The Late Mary Shelley (2021); BBC Radio 4 'In our Time': Frankenstein (2019); Shelley's Poetical Essay: The Bodleian Libraries' 12 millionth Book (2015); Frankenstein: The Secret Life of Books, BBC Four (2014).
Research degree supervision:
I supervise research into the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; poetry of the Romantic period including its manuscript and early printed forms, contexts, influences and reception; and textual editing. PhD students I've supervised or co-supervised include:
Refat Aljumily, who worked on a cluster analytic approach to the anonymous 1821 translation of Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Faust, and is now researching the computation of linguistic features in literary texts and the classification of literary texts according to different criteria including writing style, poetic genres, registers and modes of poems.
Clare Almond, who worked on an interpretation of the dramatic in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's writings through Walter Benjamin's theory of constellation, and is now researching stories about local witches for Ryedale Folk Museum.
Ayah Arabi Durkawi, who worked on nature and place in the poems of William Wordsworth and Walter Scott, and is now Associate Lecturer in the Department of Arabic and Persian at the University of St Andrews.
Christopher Goulding, who worked on the influence of James Lind on the scientific and philosophical thought of Percy Shelley, and is now a teacher of English Language and English Literature at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne.
Katie Harland-Edminson, who worked on William Wordsworth's poetry and trauma theory, and is now Deputy Director, Development, in the Development and Alumni Office at Durham University.
Ben Hewitt, who worked on Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Faust and the writings of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, and has since published a book and articles on Romantic poetry and drama.
Andrew Lacey, who worked on the philosophy of death in the poetry of William Wordsworth and Percy Shelley, and is now Senior Research Associate in the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing at Lancaster University.
Soad Nigm, who worked on the idea of America in the works of Robert Southey, Joel Barlow and Walt Whitman, and is now Lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages at Tanta University.
Jonathan Quayle, who worked on utopia in Percy Shelley's poetry, and is now Lecturer in Romantic Literature in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University.
Alice Robinson, who worked on Percy Shelley's debt to Ancient Roman Literature, and is currently researching an article about a manuscript at Keats-Shelley House, Rome with the support of a Newcastle University Career Development Post-Submission Bursary.
Helen Stark, who worked on masculinities and national identities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and is now Research Impact Manager for the Arts & Humanities and Social & Historical Sciences Faculties at University College London.
Leanne Stokoe, who worked on political economy in Percy Shelley's prose, and is now Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University.
Yasuaki Sugiyama, who worked on Terry Eagleton and questions of realism in the English novel, now teaches English in Japan and is currently working on a book on English grammar and literature.
Rihana Suliman, who worked on codes of manliness in writings of the 1790s, and is now Lecturer in English Literature at Damascus University.
Valentina Varinelli, who worked on Percy Shelley and the Italian language, and is now Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Linguistic Sciences and Foreign Literatures at the Catholic University of Brescia.
Rachel Woolley, who worked on the treatment of Italy in the writings of Mary Shelley, and is now Senior Tutor and UCAS Adviser in the Sixth Form at Rochester Independent College.
Xiao Yu, who worked on the representation of memory in the writings of William Wordsworth and George Eliot, and is now Career Development Coordinator at the Career Centre in the Cambridge Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.
Undergraduate teaching:
Revolutions (SEL1005)
Revolutionary Britain, 1789-1832 (SEL2203)
Writing Liberty in the Romantic era (SEL3412)
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Articles
- Rossington M. The Publication of Hellas. Romanticism 2024, 30(1), 81-92.
- Rossington M. Some Lifetime Editions of Shelley owned by Richard Monckton Milnes. L'Analisi Linguistica e Letteraria 2019, 27(3), 131-141.
- Rossington M. William Michael Rossetti and the Organization of P. B. Shelley in the Later Nineteenth Century. European Romantic Review 2015, 26(3), 387-393.
- Edwards G, Rossington M. Introduction: George Crabbe: Times and Spaces. Romanticism 2014, 20(2), 103-105.
- Rossington M. Crabbe's Times. Romanticism 2014, 20(2), 117-127.
- Rossington M. Theorizing a republican poetics: P. B. Shelley and Alfieri. European Romantic Review (Special Issue: Transforming Tragedy, Identity and Community) 2009, 20(5), 619-628.
- Rossington M. Mary Shelley’s Short Stories Notebook in the Bodleian Library. La questione Romantica: Rivista interdisciplinare di studi romantici 2009, n.s. 1(1: Mary Shelley Special Issue in Memory of Betty T. Bennett), 113-117.
- Rossington M. Rousseau and Tacitus: republican inflections in the Shelleys' History of a Six Weeks' Tour. European Romantic Review 2008, 19(4), 321-333.
- Rossington M. 'The destinies of the world': Shelley's reception and transmission of European news in 1820-21. Romanticism 2007, 13(3), 233-243.
- Rossington M. Claire Clairmont’s fair copy of Shelley’s ‘Ode to Naples’: A Rediscovered Manuscript. Review of English Studies 2005, 56(223), 59-89.
- Rossington M. Commemorating the Relic: The Beginnings of the Bodleian Shelley Collections. Bodleian Library Record 2004, 18(3), 264-275.
- Rossington M. Sacred Monuments: Mary Shelley's Lives of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Romantic Circles. Chamber Music: The life-writing of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, and Mary Shelley 2002.
- Rossington M. Shelley and the Orient. Keats-Shelley Review 1991, 6, 18-36.
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Book Chapters
- Rossington M. Mary Shelley as Editor, Translator and European: a Tribute to the Scholarship of Jean de Palacio. In: Braida, A, ed. Mary Shelley and Europe: Essays in Honour of Jean de Palacio. Cambridge: Legenda, 2020, pp.48-56.
- Rossington M. Creative Translation. In: David Duff, ed. The Oxford Handbook of British Romanticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp.547-561.
- Rossington M. Tragedy. In: O'Neill, M; Howe, A; Callaghan, M, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp.299-308.
- Rossington M. Editing Shelley. In: O'Neill M; Howe A; Callaghan M, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp.645-656.
- Rossington M. Tragedy: The Cenci and Swellfoot the Tyrant. In: O'Neill, M., Howe, A. with the assistance of Madeleine Callaghan, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp.299-308.
- Rossington M. Editing Shelley. In: O'Neill, M., Howe, A. with the assistance of Madeleine Callaghan, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp.645-656.
- Rossington M. Shelley's Neapolitan-Tuscan poetics: 'Sonnet: Political Greatness' and the 'Republic' of Benevento. In: Alan M. Weinberg and Timothy Webb, ed. The Unfamiliar Shelley. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009, pp.137-156.
- Rossington M. Republican histories and memories: The Shelleys, Switzerland and Geneva. In: Cossy, V; Kapossy, B; Whatmore, R, ed. Genève, lieu d’Angleterre 1725-1814 / Geneva, an English Enclave 1725-1814. Geneva: Slatkine, 2009, pp.307-325.
- Rossington M. Beyond Nation: Shelley's European Dramas. In: Crisafulli LM; Pietropoli C, ed. The Languages of Performance in British Romanticism. Oxford and New York: Peter Lang, 2008, pp.83-95.
- Rossington M. Shelley's republics. In: Glen H; Hamilton P, ed. Repossessing the romantic past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp.63-79.
- Rossington M. Future Uncertain: the republican tradition and its destiny in Valperga. In: Bennett, B.T. Curran, S, ed. Mary Shelley in Her Times. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, pp.103-118.
- Rossington M. An Historical Note on The Cenci Story and the sources of Shelley's knowledge of it. In: Kelvin Everest and Geoffrey Matthews, ed. The Poems of Shelley, Volume 2: 1817-1819. London and New York: Longman, 2000, pp.865-875.
- Rossington M. Poetry by Burns, Cowper, Crabbe, Southey, and Other Male Authors. In: O'Neill, M, ed. Literature of the Romantic Period: A Bibliographical Guide. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, 1998, pp.192-220.
- Rossington M. Shakespeare in The Cenci: tragedy and 'familiar imagery'. In: Batchelor, J., Cain, T., Lamont, C, ed. Shakespearean Continuities: Essays in Honour of E. A. J. Honigmann. Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan and St Martin's Press, 1997, pp.305-318.
- Rossington M. The voice which is contagion to the world: the Bacchic in Shelley. In: Copley, S., Whale, J, ed. Beyond Romanticism: New approaches to texts and contexts 1780-1832. London and New York: Routledge, 1992, pp.101-117.
- Rossington M. Shelley, The Cenci and The French Revolution. In: Everest, K, ed. Revolution in Writing: British literary responses to the French Revolution. Milton Keynes and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1991, pp.138-57.
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Edited Books
- Schmid S, Rossington M, ed. The Reception of P.B. Shelley in Europe. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
- Schmid S, Rossington M, ed. The Reception of P. B. Shelley in Europe. London and New York: Continuum, 2008.
- Rossington M, Whitehead A, Contributing eds.: Anderson L, Chedgzoy K, Mukherjee P, Richards J, ed. Theories of Memory: A Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
- Lamont C, Rossington M, ed. Romanticism's Debatable Lands. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
- Rossington M, Whitehead A, ed. Between the Psyche and the Polis: Refiguring History in Literature and Theory. Aldershot and Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2000.
- Perry G, Rossington M, ed. Femininity and masculinity in eighteenth-century art and culture. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.
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Online Publications
- Rossington M. Wordsworth Summer Conference: Michael Rossington on Shelley's Textual History. Keats-Shelley Association of America, 2019. Available at: https://www.k-saa.org/blog/wordsworth-summer-conference-michael-rossington-on-shelleys-textual-history?rq=Rossington.
- Rossington M. Introduction to Shelley's Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things (1811) in 'About the Text', Shelley's Poetical Essay: The Bodleian Libraries' 12 millionth book. Oxford, UK: The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, 2015. Available at: http://poeticalessay.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about-the-text/.
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Scholarly Editions
- Adamson C, Bowers W, Donovan J, Everest K, Nabugodi M, Rossington M. The Poems of Shelley, Volume 6: 1822. In: Hammond P; Rossington M; Shrank C ed. Longman Annotated English Poets 2024. London and New York: Routledge, 726.
- Adamson C, Bowers W, Donovan J, Everest K, Nabugodi M, Rossington M. The Poems of Shelley, Volume 5: 1821-1822. In: Hammond P; Rossington M; Shrank C ed. Longman Annotated English Poets 2024. London and New York: Routledge, 552.
- Everest K, Adamson C, Bowers W, Donovan J, Duffy C, Matthews G, Nabugodi M, Pite R, Rossington M. Shelley: Selected Poems. In: Hammond P, Hopkins D, Rossington M ed. Longman Annotated English Poets 2023. London and New York: Routledge, 932 pp.
- Rossington M, Donovan J, Everest K, eds. The Poems of Shelley, Volume 4: 1820-1821. Longman Annotated English Poets 2013. London and New York: Routledge, 424 pp.
- Donovan J, Duffy C, Everest K, Rossington M, eds. The Poems of Shelley, Volume 3: 1819-1820. Longman Annotated English Poets 2011. London and New York: Pearson Education, 784 pp.
- Rossington M, ed. 'The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts'. In: Kelvin Everest and Geoffrey Matthews ed. The Poems of Shelley, Volume 2: 1817-1819 2000. London and New York: Longman, pp. 713-863.
- Rossington M. Mary Shelley, Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca. 2000. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.