Nick Groom

Last updated

Nick Groom
FRSA
Born1966 (age 57–58)
NationalityBritish
Academic background
Education Bedford Modern School
Alma mater Hertford College, Oxford
Thesis Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Its Context, Presentation, and Reception
Institutions

Nicholas Michael Groom FRSA (born 1966) is Professor of English Literature at the University of Macau, an author on subjects ranging from the history of the Union Jack, [1] [2] to Thomas Chatterton, [3] [4] has edited several books and regularly appears on television, radio and at literary festivals as an authority on English Literature, seasonal customs, J. R. R. Tolkien, the 'Gothic' and 'British' and 'English' identities. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Due to his extensive work on the Goth subculture, especially on the history of vampires, he has become known as the 'Prof of Goth' in the media and has written several articles on the Goth scene, including essays on the singer, Nick Cave.

Contents

Early years

Nick Groom was born in 1966 and educated at Bedford Modern School [10] and Hertford College, Oxford where he graduated with first class honours in 1988. [5] He was awarded a DPhil (Oxon) in 1994 with his doctoral thesis, Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Its Context, Presentation, and Reception. [5] [11]

Career

Groom became a lecturer in English at the University of Exeter in 1994, a Senior Lecturer in Post-Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol in 2000 and Reader in English Literature at the University of Bristol in 2003. [5] In April 2000 he was a Visiting Associate Professor at Stanford University following which he was made Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago in October 2001. [5]

In 2007 Groom was made Professor of English Literature at the University of Exeter and established the Exeter Centre for Literatures of Identity, Place and Sustainability in 2008. [5] He is on the management board of the Atlantic Archipelagos Research Consortium and the Wellcome Centre for the Cultures and Environments of Health.

Groom teaches courses on the Gothic. He also used to teach what was then the only undergraduate course in Britain on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Groom’s research has ‘largely focussed on three areas; cultural formation and authenticity, including attribution studies (work on forgery and, specifically, Chatterton); national identity (Englishness and Britishness, including the Gothic); and historicist popular culture and folklore (seasons and saints’ days)’. [5] He has recently concentrated particularly on Gothic literature. His book The Seasons was shortlisted for the Katherine Briggs Folklore Prize and was runner-up for BBC Countryfile Book of the Year 2014.

Groom wrote an essay on The Young Ones for The Cassell Book of Great British Comedy and in 2008 he nominated Rik Mayall for an Honorary Degree at the University of Exeter. [12] Following Mayall’s death in 2014, Groom was regularly interviewed to comment on Mayall’s unique contribution to English comedy.

Groom is a critically acclaimed author, has edited several books including four Gothic novels for Oxford University Press and a twelve volume edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare (London and Bristol: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1995), [13] has contributed over seventy chapters and articles to edited collections and academic journals [5] and has regularly reviewed books for The Financial Times , Times Higher Education and The Independent . [5] He is currently a contributor to The Times Literary Supplement . His online essay "Let's discuss over country supper soon" [14] was used for 'Creating a Countryside', the 2017 exhibition at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park.

Personal life

Groom lives on Dartmoor. He has a flock of sheep and is actively involved in local arts and music.

Selected publications

Books

Critical studies, reviews and biography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gothic fiction</span> Romance, horror and death literary genre

Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name refers to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goth subculture</span> Contemporary subculture

Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. R. R. Tolkien</span> English writer and philologist (1892–1973)

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Gothic rock is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and the Cure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Chatterton</span> English medieval-style poet (1752–1770)

Thomas Chatterton was an English poet whose precocious talents ended in suicide at age 17. He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Westron, Adûni, or Sôval Phârë, is the constructed language that was supposedly the Common Speech used in J. R. R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth in the Third Age, at the time of The Lord of the Rings. It supposedly developed from Adûnaic, the ancient language of Númenor. In practice in the novel, Westron is nearly always represented by modern English, in a process of pseudo-translation which also sees Rohirric represented by Old English. That process allowed Tolkien not to develop Westron or Rohirric in any detail. In the Appendices of the novel, Tolkien gives some examples of Westron words.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humphrey Carpenter</span> English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster (1946–2005)

Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien and other members of the literary society the Inklings. He won a Mythopoeic Award for his book The Inklings in 1982.

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<i>Songs for the Philologists</i> Poetry collection by J.R.R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon

Songs for the Philologists is a collection of poems by E. V. Gordon and J. R. R. Tolkien as well as traditional songs. It is the rarest and most difficult to find Tolkien-related book. Originally a collection of typescripts compiled by Gordon in 1921–1926 for the students of the University of Leeds, it was given by A. H. Smith of University College London, a former student at Leeds, to a group of students to be printed privately in 1935 or 1936, and printed in 1936 with the impressum "Printed by G. Tillotson, A. H. Smith, B. Pattison and other members of the English Department, University College, London."

John Haffenden is emeritus professor of English literature at the University of Sheffield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Bate</span> British author, scholar and critic

Sir Andrew Jonathan Bate, CBE, FBA, FRSL, is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, scholar, and occasional novelist, playwright and poet. He specializes in Shakespeare, Romanticism and ecocriticism. He is Regents Professor of Literature and Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities in a joint appointment in the Department of English in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Sustainability in the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, where he holds the title of Professor of English Literature. Bate was Provost of Worcester College from 2011 to 2019. From 2017 to 2019 he was Gresham Professor of Rhetoric in the City of London. He was knighted in 2015 for services to literary scholarship and higher education. He is also Chair of the Hawthornden Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israel Gollancz</span> 19th/20th-century British philologist and university teacher

Sir Israel Gollancz, FBA was a scholar of early English literature and of Shakespeare. He was Professor of English Language and Literature at King's College, London, from 1903 to 1930.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Wright (linguist)</span> English philologist and Oxford professor

Joseph Wright FBA was an English Germanic philologist who rose from humble origins to become Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford.

George Stuart Gordon was a British literary scholar.

Philip Schwyzer is an American-British literary scholar and author, who since 2001 has been Professor of Renaissance Literature at Exeter University.

<i>The Road to Middle-Earth</i> Book of literary criticism of Tolkien

The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology is a scholarly study of the Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien written by Tom Shippey and first published in 1982. The book discusses Tolkien's philology, and then examines in turn the origins of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and his minor works. An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources. Two further editions extended and updated the work, including a discussion of Peter Jackson's film version of The Lord of the Rings.

Elizabeth Solopova is a Russian-British philologist and medievalist undertaking research at New College, Oxford. She is known outside academic circles for her work on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings.

John Garth is a British journalist and author, known especially for writings about J. R. R. Tolkien including his biography Tolkien and the Great War and a book on the places that inspired Middle-earth, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien. He won a 2004 Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship for his work on Tolkien. The biography influenced much Tolkien scholarship in the subsequent decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romance (prose fiction)</span> Genre of novel

Romance, is a "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents". This genre contrasted with the main tradition of the novel, which realistically depict life. These works frequently, but not exclusively, take the form of the historical novel. Walter Scott describes romance as a "kindred term", and many European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien and antiquarianism</span> J. R. R. Tolkiens literary approach

J. R. R. Tolkien included many elements in his Middle-earth writings, especially The Lord of the Rings, other than narrative text. These include artwork, calligraphy, chronologies, family trees, heraldry, languages, maps, poetry, proverbs, scripts, glossaries, prologues, and annotations. Much of this material is collected in the many appendices. Scholars have stated that the use of these elements places Tolkien in the tradition of English antiquarianism.

References

  1. ↑ Mike Phillips (24 June 2006). "Review: The Union Jack: The Story of the British Flag by Nick Groom". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  2. ↑ "The Union Jack: The story of the British flag, by Nick Groom". The Independent. Archived from the original on 14 August 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  3. ↑ "System Cookie Warning" . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  4. ↑ Lamb, Jonathan (20 September 2001). "Jonathan Lamb reviews 'Thomas Chatterton and Romantic Culture' by Nick Groom · LRB 20 September 2001". London Review of Books. 23 (18). Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 CURRICULUM VITAE, Prof. Nick Groom, MA, DPhil (Oxon.), FRSA, University of Exeter
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Groom, Nick 1966-" . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  7. ↑ "Literary Encyclopedia - Profile of Nick Groom" . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  8. ↑ "A Very British Union Flag - The Symbol Of Union Which In Reality Is Anything But - Flagmakers". Flagmakers. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  9. ↑ Nick Groom, Alright, Jack? Conflict and Cohesion in Britain, 2005-10, Reconceiving the British Isles: The Literature of the Archipelago, Series Editor: John Brannigan, General Editor: P.J. Mathews, Series 4: (Spring 2010)
  10. ↑ School of the Black and Red, by Andrew Underwood (1981); reset and updated 2010 (page 286)
  11. ↑ Thomas Percy's Reliques of ancient English poetry : its context, presentation, and reception. OCLC   47257663 . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  12. ↑ "Featured news - Rik Mayall - a tribute - University of Exeter" . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  13. ↑ "The plays of William Shakespeare / with a new introduction by Nick Groom. - Version details - Trove" . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  14. ↑ "Nick Groom - 'Let's discuss over country supper soon' - Rural Realities and Rustic Representations - Little Toller Books". Little Toller Books. 22 August 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  15. ↑ Thomas Chatterton and romantic culture. OCLC   041880324 . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  16. ↑ Introducing Shakespeare. OCLC   753976354 . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  17. ↑ "Review of The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction" . Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  18. ↑ Groom, Nick (27 September 2012). The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780199586790.
  19. ↑ Sarah Bakewell (31 December 2013). "The Seasons: an Elegy for the Passing of the Year by Nick Groom – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  20. ↑ "The Seasons – Atlantic Books". Atlantic Books. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  21. ↑ "An all-weather affair – TheTLS". www.the-tls.co.uk. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  22. ↑ Walpole, Horace; Groom, Nick, eds. (9 October 2014). The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story. Oxford World's Classics (Third ed.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780198704447.
  23. ↑ Lewis, Matthew; Groom, Nick, eds. (2016). The Monk. Oxford World's Classics (New ed.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780198704454.
  24. ↑ Radcliffe, Ann; Groom, Nick, eds. (23 March 2017). The Italian. Oxford World's Classics (New Edition, Third ed.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780198704430.
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