
Dr Megan Leitch
BA Hons (Br.Col.), MPhil, PhD (Cambridge)
Lecturer
- leitchm@cardiff.ac.uk
- +44 (0)29 2087 0406
- 2.18, Adeilad John Percival , Rhodfa Colum, Caerdydd, CF10 3EU
- Ar gael fel goruchwyliwr ôl-raddedig
Trosolwg
My research is focussed in the area of Medieval English Literature. Please see my publications, teaching and research pages for more information.
I am currently supervising PhD students working on medieval Arthurian literature, crusading interests in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century English prose romances, and medieval English queens on the early modern stage. I welcome applications from potential postgraduate students planning research in these areas or in the other areas listed under my research interests. Informal enquiries are always welcome.
Bywgraffiad
Career Overview
- August 2016 - present: Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Cardiff University
- September 2012 - July 2016: Lecturer in English Literature, Cardiff University
Education and Qualifications
- 2012: PhD, University of Cambridge
- 2009: MPhil, University of Cambridge
- 2008: BA (Hons), University of British Columbia
Anrhydeddau a Dyfarniadau
- Visiting Research Fellow, St Catherine's College, University of Oxford, 2015
Aelodaethau proffesiynol
- Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy
- New Chaucer Society
- International Arthurian Society, British Branch
- Canadian Society of Medievalists
Safleoedd academaidd blaenorol
- August 2016 - present: Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Cardiff University
- September 2012 - July 2016: Lecturer in English Literature, Cardiff University
Ymrwymiadau siarad cyhoeddus
Invited addresses include:
London Old and Middle English Research Seminar (LOMERS), November 2015: ‘“grete luste to slepe”: Sleep and its Spaces in the Pre-modern Imagination’
University of Cambridge, Magdalene Medievalists Seminar, June 2015: ‘Chaucer, Hypertextuality, and the Memory of Middle English Popular Romance’
University of Oxford, Medieval Seminar, October 2014: ‘Drowsy Knights and Dreamers: The Ethics and Affect of Sleep from Chaucer to Malory’
Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, Conference on Representing War and Violence in the Pre-Modern World, September 2013: ‘”For treason walketh wonder wyde”: civil strife and pragmatism in the literature of the Wars of the Roses, c.1437-c.1497’
Durham University, Department of English Seminar, March 2013: ‘Sleep and Romance from Chaucer to Shakespeare’
University of Bristol, Centre for Medieval Studies Seminar, October 2012: ‘”For treason walketh wonder wyde”: Treason, Truth, and Pragmatism in the Literature of the Wars of the Roses, c.1437-c.1497’
Pwyllgorau ac adolygu
Co-Director, Cardiff Centre for Medieval Studies
External Committees
Committee Member, International Arthurian Society, British Branch, 2012-2016
Associate Editor, Arthurian Literature (Boydell and Brewer), 2010-2012
Cyhoeddiadau
2022
- Leitch, M. G. 2022. The artistry of Malory’s mercantile metaphors: Goods, generosity, and the source of 'The Tale of Sir Gareth'. In: Leitch, M. and Whetter, K. S. eds. Arthurian Literature XXXVII., Vol. 37. Arthurian Literature Boydell and Brewer Inc, pp. 23-48., (10.1017/9781800105911.004)
- Flood, V. and Leitch, M. G. 2022. Cultural translations in medieval romance. D. S. Brewer.
- Leitch, M. G. 2022. Merchants in shining armour: chivalrous interventions and social mobility in Late Middle English romance. In: Flood, V. and Leitch, M. G. eds. Cultural Translations in Medieval Romance. D. S. Brewer
- Leitch, M. and Whetter, K. S. eds. 2022. Arthurian Literature. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
2021
- Leitch, M. G. 2021. From sorceresses to scholars: universities and the disenchantment of romance. In: Edwards, A. S. G. ed. Medieval Romance, Arthurian Literature: Essays in Honour of Elizabeth Archibald. D. S. Brewer, pp. 16-33.
- Leitch, M. 2021. Sleep and its spaces in Middle English literature: emotions, ethics, dreams. Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Leitch, M. and Whetter, K. eds. 2021. Arthurian Literature. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
2019
- Leitch, M. G. 2019. Malory in literary context. In: Leitch, M. G. and Rushton, C. J. eds. A New Companion to Malory. Arthurian Studies Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer
- Leitch, M. G. and Rushton, C. J. eds. 2019. A new companion to Malory. Arthurian Studies. Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer.
- Leitch, M. and Bellis, J. 2019. Chivalric literature. In: Companion to Chivalry. Boydell Press
2018
- Leitch, M. G. 2018. Middle English romance: The motifs and the critics. In: Archibald, E., Leitch, M. G. and Saunders, C. eds. Romance Rewritten: The Evolution of Middle English Romance. A Tribute to Helen Cooper. Studies in Medieval Romance Cambridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer, pp. 1-24.
- Leitch, M. G., Archibald, E. and Saunders, C. eds. 2018. Romance rewritten: The evolution of Middle English romance. Studies in Medieval Romance. Cambridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer.
2017
- Leitch, M. 2017. The servants of chivalry? Dwarfs and porters in Malory and the Middle English Gawain romances. Arthuriana 27(1), pp. 3-27. (10.1353/art.2017.0000)
2016
- Leitch, M. 2016. “of his ffader spak he no thing”: family resemblance and anxiety of influence in the prose romances. In: King, A. and Woodcock, M. eds. Medieval Into Renaissance: Essays for Helen Cooper. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer
- Leitch, M. 2016. Mordred. In: Echard, S. and Rouse, R. eds. Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature. Wiley-Blackwell
- Leitch, M. 2016. Prose romance. In: Echard, S. and Rouse, R. eds. Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature. Wiley-Blackwell
- Leitch, M. 2016. The squire of low degree. In: Echard, S. and Rouse, R. eds. Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature. Wiley-Blackwell
2015
- Leitch, M. 2015. Ritual, revenge and the politics of chess in Medieval romance. In: Perkins, N. ed. Medieval Romance and Material Culture. Studies in Medieval Romance Boydell and Brewer, pp. 129-146.
- Leitch, M. 2015. 'grete luste to slepe': somatic ethics and the sleep of romance from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Shakespeare. Parergon 32(1), pp. 103-128. (10.1353/pgn.2015.0006)
- Leitch, M. 2015. Romancing treason: The literature of the Wars of the Roses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2014
- Leitch, M. 2014. Enter the bedroom: managing space for the erotic in Middle English romance. In: Hopkins, A., Rouse, R. A. and Rushton, C. J. eds. Sexual Culture in Late Medieval Britain. Boydell and Brewer, pp. 39-53.
- Leitch, M. 2014. "suche maner of sorow-makynge": affect, ethics and unconsciousness in Malory's Morte Darthur. Arthurian Literature 2014, pp. 83-99.
2012
- Leitch, M. 2012. Thinking twice about treason in Caxton's prose romances: Proper chivalric conduct and the English printing press. Medium Aevum LXXXI(1), pp. 41-69.
- Leitch, M. 2012. Locating authorial ethics: the idea of the ‘male’ or book-bag in the 'Canterbury Tales' and other Middle English poems. The Chaucer Review 46(4), pp. 403-418. (10.1353/cr.2012.0004)
2011
- Leitch, M. 2011. (Dis)figuring transgressive desire: blood, sex, and stained sheets in Malory’s Morte Darthur. In: Clark, D. and McClune, K. eds. Arthurian Literature XXVIII: Blood, Sex, Malory: Essays on the Morte Darthur. Arthurian Literature Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 21-38.
2010
- Leitch, M. 2010. Speaking (of) treason in Malory’s 'Morte Darthur'. In: Archibald, E. and Johnson, D. F. eds. Arthurian Literature XXVII. Arthurian Literature Vol. 27. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 103-134.
Addysgu
At Cardiff I teach a range of undergraduate and MA modules on medieval literature. These include:
- Medieval Literatures of the British Isles (Year One)
- Chivalry and Subversion in Medieval Literature (Year Two)
- Medieval Romance: Monsters and Magic (Year Three)
- Heroes and Villains from Chaucer to Shakespeare (MA)
I am currently supervising PhD students working on medieval Arthurian literature, crusading interests in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century English prose romances, and medieval English queens on the early modern stage. I welcome applications from potential postgraduate students planning research in these areas or in the other areas listed under my research interests. Informal enquiries are always welcome.
Research interests
- Middle English romance
- Medieval Arthurian Literature
- Chaucer and the Gawain-poet
- Malory's Morte Darthur, the Wars of the Roses, and fifteenth-century English Literature
- translation of Old and Middle French Literature into Middle English
- periodisation and continuities between medieval and early modern English Literature
- treason, sleep, ethics, and emotions in medieval English culture
I am currently supervising PhD students working on medieval Arthurian literature, crusading interests in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century English prose romances, and medieval English queens on the early modern stage. I welcome applications from potential postgraduate students planning research in these areas or in the other areas listed under my research interests above. Informal enquiries are always welcome.
My monograph, Romancing Treason: The Literature of the Wars of the Roses (Oxford University Press, January 2015), analyzes texts from a variety of genres alongside contemporary social and political discourses in order to demonstrate that this literary culture is broader and richer than has previously been recognized. While the mid-to-late fifteenth century often goes unaddressed by both medievalists and early modernists, seen as a blip or rupture between the highs of Chaucer (and his immediate successors) and the developments of Tudor writers, my book examines the central role of treason in Malory's Morte Darthur (written in 1469; printed by Caxton in 1485) and in understudied contemporary texts such as the prose Siege of Thebes and Siege of Troy and the romances Caxton himself translated.
Drawing upon theories of political discourse and interpellation, of the power of language to shape social identities, my book explores the ways in which, in this textual culture, treason is both a source of anxieties about community and identity, and a way of responding to those concerns. I argue that this literature offers instruction by both negative and positive reinforcement, with the former - the mode of paraenesis or admonition - attaining a distinctive primacy. Prose romances play a central role in this ethical discourse, but the concentrated yet contested ways in which treason is discussed in attainders, petitions, political poems, chronicles, and correspondence, as well as in literary texts, point us to a key word and concept of the time. By paying heed to the concerns convened by treason, my book establishes some characteristics for the space between Lancastrian and Tudor literary culture, articulating the idea of a literature of the Wars of the Roses.
In addition to Arthurian Literature and the fifteenth century, I also have a strong research interest in Chaucer: I have published on Chaucer's poetics and tropes of gendered authorial anxiety in The Chaucer Review; I am also returning to Chaucer as part of my new book project. Entitled Sleep and Its Spaces from Chaucer to Shakespeare, this study will address the affective, erotic, ethical, ideological, political, and visionary issues raised by sleep from the twelfth century to the early seventeenth, with a particular focus on literature of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. This study of sleep's vital implications for how premodern people thought of and fashioned themselves, individually and collectively, seeks to elucidate a mode of reading and moulding bodily performance that can enhance our understanding of many works of medieval and early modern literature, and of the continuities between them. My research will also question the distinctions we can (or should) make between literature and medical tracts, conduct books, and sermons - between imagination and practice.