John Colley
Supported by The University of Glasgow Library
John Colley has been Research Fellow in English at St John’s College, Cambridge since 2023, having completed his degrees at Oxford. He works on classical reception across late medieval and early modern English literature, and has recently published his first two books: Humanism, English Literature, and the Translation of Greek, 1430–1560 (OUP, 2025), and The Coniuracion of Lucius Sergius Catelina: An Early Tudor Translation of Sallust’s ‘Bellum Catilinae’ (OUP/EETS, 2025). His articles have appeared in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Notes and Queries, Medium Ævum, The Review of English Studies, Translation and Literature, Studies in Philology, and Erudition and the Republic of Letters.
John will spend his time in Glasgow on several classical reception projects, continuing his work on the Renaissance reception of Sallust and Greek oratory. Chiefly, though, he will be working towards his monograph-in-progress on Muteness and Mute Characters from Antiquity to the Age of Shakespeare. Studying a range of early modern comedies and tragedies across English and Latin, this book argues that muteness is a hitherto overlooked aspect of classical dramatic form that playwrights appropriated and adapted in the Renaissance.
"This fellowship gives me the opportunity to study several manuscripts and unique early printed books, including Latin translations from the Athenian orator Isocrates, an early modern commentary on Seneca, and several annotated copies of the works of Plautus and Terence. This research will contribute both to my monograph-in-progress, Muteness and Mute Characters from Antiquity to the Age of Shakespeare, and to my future public engagement initiatives: I increasingly seek to introduce Latin drama from the age of Shakespeare to broader audiences, through performance practice events and related workshops. My thanks to the University of Glasgow Library for supporting this work!"
