Matthew Reynolds

I am Professor of English and Comparative Criticism and Chair of the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT) Research Centre. I am interested in how literature germinates between and crosses languages; in translation as a creative process, especially as it involves Italian, French, the classics and the many languages of English; in theorisations of comparative and world literature; in writing about visual art; and in the practice of fiction. I am most at home in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries but my work has ranged back as far as the early modern period. Among my books are Prismatic Jane Eyre: Close-Reading a World Novel Across Languages (2023), with its associated website; Prismatic Translation (2019), Babel (2019), Translation: A Very Short Introduction (2016), The Poetry of Translation: From Chaucer & Petrarch to Homer & Logue (2011), Likenesses (2013), The Realms of Verse (2001), and the novels Designs for a Happy Home (2009) and The World Was All Before Them (2013).

I edit the book series Transcript, chair the International Comparative Literature Association’s Research Development Committee, and am a member of the Academia Europaea.

More details are on my Faculty page.