Skip to main content

Staff profile

Overview

Dr Vladimir Brljak

Associate Professor

Affiliations
AffiliationTelephone
Associate Professor in the Department of English Studies+44 (0) 191 33 43370
Member of the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 

Biography

I joined the Department in 2018, having previously studied at the Universities of Zagreb (BA) and Warwick (PhD), and held the Thole Research Fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. I have held visiting fellowships and grants at the Bodleian Libraries' Centre for the Study of the Book, Huntington Library, Durham University (Seedcorn Fund Award), and the Warburg Institute, and given invited talks at a range of European and American institutions.

Research

I work mainly on English literary history, c.1500-1700, with particular interests in allegory, the history of literary criticism, and the work of John Milton. In addition, I have wider interests in the long history of poetics and hermeneutics, and the literary and cultural history of outer space and the cosmological imagination. Besides single-authored research, I am involved in several collaborative projects, teaming up with colleagues in other specializations within English literary history, other fields in the humanities and social sciences, and the creative arts.

Current projects include:

  • When Did Space Turn Dark? (Reaktion Books, under contract). Monograph exploring the shift from a bright to a dark universe in the Western cosmological imagination. While other comparable transformations - for example, from a geocentric to a heliocentric, or a bounded to an unbounded, universe - have been extensively studied, the turn from bright to dark space has received only minor notice in premodern literary history, and remains entirely unnoticed beyond this field. The project emerges out of my interest in the work of John Milton but draws on textual and visual evidence from antiquity to the present, offering the first sustained study of the subject.
  • Literary Criticism of the English Renaissance, ed. Gavin Alexander, Catherine Bates, Vladimir Brljak, Sarah Knight, and Micha Lazarus, 4 vols (Oxford University Press, under contract). Edition of primary sources in the subject. My contribution focuses on the period c.1605-75: a 'lost' age of English literary thought, typically presented as a dormant interlude between a waning 'Renaissance' and a 'Long Eighteenth Century' rather than a productive epoch in its own right. I have conducted systematic research on the subject since 2017, identifying over a hundred substantial sources, including nearly twenty unpublished works in manuscript. Trebling the corpus collected in previous scholarship, my work recovers this lost age and reassesses its contribution to literary and intellectual history.
  • Poetics before Modernity: Literary Theory in the West from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, ed. Vladimir Brljak and Micha Lazarus (Oxford University Press, under contract). Edited collection emerging from the eponymous project, redrawing the map of premodern literary thought across received historical and disciplinary divides.
  • Space in Time: From the Heavens to Outer Space, ed. Vladimir Brljak, Veronica della Dora, Stamatina Mastorakou, and John Tresch (in preparation). Edited collection emerging from the eponymous conference (Warburg Institute, 2023), exploring the long and global cultural history of the space beyond Earth, from the ancient heavens to modern outer space.

I am co-founder of 'Poetics before Modernity' (2016-), a collaborative project exploring the history of early literary thought, which I convene with Micha Lazarus and an international team of colleagues. The project organizes events in the field and publishes Sources in Early Poetics (Brill), on which I serve as General Editor.

I am also a participant (SP and MC Member) in the COST Action 'Futures-oriented Governance of Outer Space: Towards Peace, Equity, and Environmental Integrity (FOGOS)' (2024-28), collaborating with a team led by Florian Rabitz, ranging across the human and social sciences.

I have published on various other topics: Old English poetry; references to religious doctrine and controversy in Shakespeare's work; the formation of the Faust legend; modern authors drawing on 'medieval' sources and traditions (Borges, Tolkien).

Publications

ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

  • [in press] 'Milton and the Space Age: Bright Universes, Dark Universes, and the History of the Cosmological Imagination', Renaissance Quarterly 78.2 (2025)
  • [in press] 'Allegory, "Allegory", and Allegory: Ends and Beginnings, c.1500-1700', in The Oxford Handbook of Allegory, ed. David Parry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025) 
  • [in press] 'The Defence of Poesy', in The Oxford Handbook of Philip Sidney, ed. Catherine Bates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024)
  • 'Using and Abusing Poetry and Music: Gosson's School, Sidney's Defence, and Gwinne's Oration', Sidney Journal 42 (2024): 73-106
  • 'Introduction: Allegory Past and Present', in Allegory Studies: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Vladimir Brljak (New York: Routledge, 2022), 1-40
  • 'Inventing a Renaissance: Modernity, Allegory, and the History of Literary Theory', in The Reception of Aristotle's 'Poetics' in the Italian Renaissance and Beyond: New Directions in Criticism, ed. Bryan Brazeau (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 60-93
  • 'Borges against the Vikings: Early Writings on Old Germanic Literature and History, 1932-46', Old English newsletter, 47.1 (2021) [unpaginated e-text]
  • 'Introduction: Poetics as Classical Reception', Classical Receptions Journal, 13 (2021): 1-8 [with Micha Lazarus]
  • 'Hamlet and the Soul-Sleepers', Reformation and Renaissance Review, 20 (2018): 187-208
  • 'The Age of Allegory', Studies in Philology 114 (2017): 697-719
  • 'Notes on the Religious Element in Hamlet', Notes and Queries, 64 (2017): 274-8
  • 'Early Comments on Milton's Anti-Trinitarianism', Milton Quarterly, 49 (2015): 44-50
  • 'The Satanic "or": Milton and Protestant Anti-Allegorism', The Review of English Studies, n.s., 66 (2015): 403-22
  • 'Allegorical Readings of Paradise Lost', in Milton through the Centuries, ed. Gabor Ittzés and Miklós Péti (Budapest: Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary / L'Harmattan, 2012), 102-12
  • 'Borges and the North', Studies in medievalism 20 (2011): 99-128
  • 'Hamlet and Lameth', Notes and Queries 58 (2011): 247-54
  • 'Unediting Deor', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 112 (2011): 297-321
  • 'An Allusion to Purgatory in Hamlet', Notes and Queries 57 (2010): 379-80
  • 'The Books of Lost Tales: Tolkien as Metafictionist', Tolkien Studies 7 (2010): 1-34
  • 'The Lutheran "Faustus" in Foxe's Acts and Monuments', ANQ 23 (2010): 207-10

EDITED VOLUMES

  • Allegory Studies: Contemporary Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2022) 
  • 'Artes poeticae': Formations and Transformations, 1500-1650, special issue of Classical Receptions Journal 13.1 (2021) [co-edited with Micha Lazarus]
  • Personification and Allegory: Selves and Signs, Arcade (2018) [online 'colloquy']

REVIEWS

  • Review of Andrew Escobedo, Volition's Face: Personification and the Will in Renaissance Literature (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), Modern Philology 117 (2020): E173-80
  • Review of Donovan Sherman, Second Death: Theatricalities of the Soul in Shakespeare's Drama (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), Shakespeare Quarterly 70 (2019): 85-8

PRESENTATIONS

  • [forthcoming; invited] title TBC, Havering Astronomical Society, London, 15 October 2025
  • [forthcoming; invited; plenary] 'New Science and New Criticism: Poetics among the Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century England', The Poetics of Early Modern Scientific Poetry, 28-30 November 2024
  • 'Dark Space in NewSpace: Jeff Bezos' "Great Inversion", William Shatner's "Black Ugliness", and the History of the Cosmological Imagination', The Spirit of Space Exploration in China and the West, Duke Kunshan University, 6-8 June 2024
  • 'Milton's Paradise Lost and the Victorian Cosmological Imagination: The Case of James Gall (1808-1895)', International Conference of Three Societies on Literature and Science (BSLS, CoSciLit, and SLSAeu), University of Birmingham, 10-12 April 2024
  • 'The Stars and the Angels: The Cosmos of a Nineteenth-Century Clergyman', Thinking Outer Space: Philosophy, Astroculture and the Histories of Planterity, NYU Berlin, 19-21 July 2023
  • [invited] 'When Did Space Turn Dark?', Work in Progress Seminar, Warburg Institute, 12 October 2022
  • [invited] 'Reading Milton's Universe', Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, University of York, 9 June 2022
  • [invited] 'When Did Space Turn Dark?', NYU Space Talks, New York University, 23 September 2021
  • 'Milton and the Space Age: Premodern Universes and Modern Readers', British Milton Seminar, University of Birmingham, 21 March 2020
  • [invited] 'From Everyman to Hamlet: A Distant Reading', Centre for Reformation and Early Modern Studies Seminar, University of Birmingham, 4 February 2020
  • 'Milton and the Space Age: Premodern Universes and Modern Readers', 12th International Milton Symposium, Strasbourg, 17-21 June 2019
  • [invited] 'Dead Water in English Criticism: Tradition and Innovation from Bacon to Dryden', STVDIO, Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick, 9 October 2018
  • 'Classical Myth in English Poetics after 1600', 8th Biennial Conference of the Society for Renaissance Studies, University of Sheffied, 3-5 July 2018
  • [invited] 'Inventing Renaissance Poetics: Modernity, Allegory, and the History of Literary Theory', Workshop in Poetics, Stanford University, 10 April 2018
  • 'The Return of Allegory?', 64th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, New Orleans, 22-24 March 2018
  • [invited] 'Hamlet in 1603', University of Zagreb, 11-13 April 2016 [series of three public lectures - 'Hamlet in Heaven', 'Hamlet in Purgatory', 'Hamlet in Hell' - given as part of the Shakespeare Lives project]
  • 'The Critical Fantasies of Philip Kinder', 63rd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, 30 March-1 April 2017
  • '(Neo)allegory and (Anti)modernity', Redefining Allegory, Queen Mary University of London, 24 September 2016
  • [invited] 'Allegorical Poetics in England after 1600: Fishing in the Dead Water', Renaissance Graduate Seminar, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, 9 February 2016
  • [invited] 'Kenelm Digby on "the causes and obiects of delectation"', workshop for 'Genius before Romanticism: Ingenuity in Early Modern Art and Science' (ERC, PI Alexander Marr), CRASSH, Cambridge, 2016
  • '"[S]ome shadowe of satisfaction": Bacon's Poetics Revisited', 61st Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Humboldt University, Berlin, 26-28 March 2015
  • '"[T]he causes and obiects of delectation": An Unpublished Essay on Poetic Theory by Kenelm Digby', 6th Biennial Conference of the Society for Renaissance Studies, University of Southampton, 13-15 July 2014
  • [invited] 'Of Ale and Allegory: Inventing the Middle Ages', Research Day in Medieval English Studies, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Piliscsaba, 4 April 2014
  • 'Satan's Allegories and Milton's Epics', 60th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, New York, 27-29 March 2014
  • 'The Age of Allegory: A Medievalist Myth and Its Legacy', The Middle Ages in the Modern World, University of St Andrew, 25-28 June 2013
  • 'Allegory and Modernity in English Poetics, c.1570-1630: Locations and Dislocations', Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, University of Toronto, 4-7 April 2013
  • 'The Mouth of Hell: Hamlet, 1.5.2-91', Arts Faculty Seminar, University of Warwick, 23 May 2012
Teaching

I convene What Is Literature? Literary Thought from Antiquity to Modernity (L2), 'Paradise Lost' as Science Fiction (L3), and Early Modern Science Fiction (MA, forthcoming 2025-26); tutor on Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature (L2); lecture across the pre-1900 syllabus (L1-3); and supervise BA, MA and PhD dissertations on a wide range of topics.

Doctoral Supervision and Postdoctoral Mentorship

I welcome enquiries from prospective doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers interested in topics indicated above.

Esteem Indicators

Supervision students

Callum Bowler

Research Postgraduate

Cherrie Gottsleben

Research Postgraduate

Beth Clancy

Research Postgraduate

Mackenzie Scott

Research Postgraduate