Dr Rebecca Menmuir, DPhil English, University of Oxford

Profile

I joined the School of English and Drama in September 2021 as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow to research for my book project, ‘Classical Pseudepigrapha and Forgeries in the English Middle Ages (c. 1100–1500)’. After growing up and going to school in Oxford, I completed my BA in English at Royal Holloway, before going to Oxford to complete my MSt (St Hilda’s College) and DPhil (Jesus College), both specialising in Medieval Literature. My doctoral thesis examined the reception of Ovid’s exile poetry in the later Middle Ages, partially focusing on its influence on the works of Chaucer and Gower.

After the DPhil, I worked as a Junior Lecturer at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, teaching medieval topics spanning 650-1550, as well as English for Academic Purposes. I continue to teach part-time at the University of Oxford on later medieval topics, and have also supervised undergraduate dissertations.

Teaching

I do not currently teach any courses at Queen Mary, but I would be happy to hear from any students interested in classical reception in medieval literature, or on the topics of later medieval English literature more generally.

Research

Research Interests:

• 14^th and 15^th century literature
• The Classics in the Middle Ages
• Classical Literature, especially Ovid
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• John Gower

Recent and On-Going Research

I am currently working on a three-year book project exploring classical forgeries and pseudepigrapha in the later Middle Ages. This book examines the strong presence of pseudo-texts, particularly pseudo-Ovidiana, in the medieval period, and argues for their influence across classrooms, libraries, monasteries, and poetic thought.

Publications

Articles and chapters

‘Tracing Ovid’s “Best Line” in the Middle Ages’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 33 (forthcoming 2023), 57–88

'Lessons from Ovid's Ibis in the Middle Ages', The Chaucer Review 56:2 (2021), 171–192

‘“Edifying Words” in the Florilegium of New College MS 98’, New College Notes 13 (2020), 1–9

Book reviews

‘Epic Allusions: Justin Haynes, The Medieval Classic: Twelfth-Century Latin Epic and the Virgilian Commentary Tradition’, The Cambridge Quarterly 51:3 (2022) 286–92

‘Lynn Staley, Following Chaucer: Offices of the Active Life’, Speculum 97:1 (2022), 254–56

Other publications

In The Year’s Work in English Studies, I have covered ‘Chaucer’ (2022, 2023); ‘Gower’ (2023); and ‘Hoccleve and Lydgate’ (2021, 2022).

For the Literary Encyclopedia (www.litencyc.com), I have written on ‘The Medieval Complaint’ (2022); ‘Geoffrey Chaucer: Anelida and Arcite’ (2021); and ‘John Gower: Vox Clamantis’ (2021).

Public Engagement

I co-organised the Medieval Pilgrimage Day, a TORCH-funded public event. During this, our group of pilgrims walked a pilgrimage route from Abingdon to Christ Church, Oxford, and then heard from The British Pilgrimage Trust. I also co-organised the Medieval Church Crawl, leading a guided tour across the medieval churches and religious spaces of Oxford and its surrounding countryside. As part of this, I designed an online and expanded version of the Medieval Church Crawl (link), which remains open access.