Professor Carolyne Larrington

I teach medieval English literature in the college, ranging from the earliest Old English to the beginning of the Renaissance period.

For Michaelmas term 2016 I am a Distinguished International Visitor at the Centre for the History of Emotion at the University of Western Australia.

My research interests range widely. I primarily work in Old Norse-Icelandic and Arthurian literature, but Arthurian literature in particular is a European phenomenon and so I write about romances composed in Old French, Middle High German, Italian, and of course Old Icelandic-Norwegian. Recent publications include: Brothers and Sisters in Medieval European Literature (2015), Emotions in Medieval Arthurian Literature (2015), and A Handbook to Eddic Poetry (2016). 

I've also been writing on medievalism and folklore. In 2015 I published The Land of the Green Man on British folklore. A BBC Radio 4 series based on this was broadcast in 2015 and can be heard here. 

Also in 2015, I published Winter is Coming: the Medieval World of Game of Thrones, exploring the historical inspiration behind this fantasy phenomenon. You can hear a recent talk I gave at the Ashmolean Museum on this book here. A second book on Game of Thrones will appear when the TV series ends.

An Introduction to Norse Myths is due from Thames and Hudson in spring 2017. 

I took part in BBC Radio 4’s programme In Our Time on Norse Gods which is available for listening here.

I'm now researching emotion in medieval literature, particularly in European secular literature and in Old Norse.