Annie Khabaza
- School: English, Drama and Film
- Supervisor: Professor Jane Grogan
“Barely English”: Richard Stanihurst, Edmund Spenser, and the remaking of Virgil in early modern Ireland
Annie’s research is focused on questions of translation, transcultural mobility, classical reception, and the cultural politics of the different communities in early modern Ireland. Her thesis is focused on a comparison of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Richard Stanihurst’s 1582 translation of the Aeneid, and how both texts use the imperial narrative of the Aeneid to consider the question of colonisation of Ireland by the English. In her thesis, she argues that understanding Spenser’s work alongside that of Stanihurst helps to build a much clearer picture of how both authors use the imperial aspects of Virgil’s epic narrative to reflect on contemporary Irish colonisation and their own roles within it.
Annie graduated from the University of Warwick in 2018 with a BA in English and Comparative Literary Studies; in the same year she was also awarded the Dr Greg Wells Undergraduate Writing Prize in the Renaissance for the best final year essay. She then completed her MA in Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies at the University of Durham in 2018-2019. She is currently a PhD candidate at University College Dublin where her research is being funded by a scholarship from the university.