Refractions : Romanticism, Modernism, Comparatism : essays in honour of Peter Vassallo

Abstract

Peter Vassallo holds an BA Honours degree in English from the University of Malta. He also holds the degrees of MA and DPhil from the University of Oxford, where he was Commonwealth Scholar and, later, Fellow. He is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the University of Malta and was formerly Head of the English Department (from 1998 to 2006). He was also Chair of the Institute of Anglo-Italian Studies (1991–2021) and is General Editor of the Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies, which he founded. He specialises in Romantic Literature and has published widely on Byron, the English Romantic Poets and on the theme of British writers and Italy. His book on Byron: The Italian Literary Influence (Macmillan, 1984) is considered ‘an authoritative study on the subject’. Peter Vassallo has been Visiting Professor at some of the leading Universities in Europe, including Oxford and Bologna, as well as a guest specialist lecturer at the British Institute of Florence. He was elected President of the International Association of University Professors of English (2007–2010) and a Fellow of the English Association (2011). He is a member of the Advisory Board of the journal Romanticism (Edinburgh) and of La questione romantica (Bologna) and sits on the Board of Directors of the International Byron Society. His publications include a chapter on ‘Romantic Narrative Poetry’ in Romanticism: An Oxford Guide, edited by Nicholas Roe (2005) and a chapter on ‘The Poetry of William Butler Yeats’ in The Cambridge History of English Literature, edited by Michael O’Neill (2010). His book on British Writers and the Experience of Italy (1800–1940): Studies in Anglo-Italian Literary Influence (Malta University Press) was published in 2012. His most recent volume is Wrestling with God: Literary Encounters with the Divine from Jacob to T. S. Eliot (Malta University Publishers, 2019). In 2015 he was invested with the National Order of Merit of the Republic of Malta. He has recently been appointed a Senior Fellow of the University. His continuing research interests include British and European Romanticism, British–Italian literary relations, Classical Mythology in English Literature, and Writers and the Mediterranean.