Research Area(s)
- medieval and early modern representations of nature
- medieval dream visions
- allegory
About me
Sarah Powrie is Professor of English at St Thomas More College. She teaches courses on Chaucer, Early English Drama, Medieval Devotional Writers, Literary Uses of Mythology, Reading the Canon, and Dante's Divine Comedy. She won a USSU Teaching Excellence Award in 2010, and the STM Teaching Excellence Award in 2015.
Dr. Powrie publishes on medieval and early modern topics. She has several publications investigating the philosophical and allegorical sources of Chaucer's dream visions. She is also interested in continuities bridging medieval and early modern periods. Her articles appear in the Chaucer Review, Modern Philology, SEL, Studies in Philology, Renaissance and Reformation, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, and the John Donne Journal.
Publications
Book
Textual Communities, Textual Selves, eds. Sarah Powrie and Gur Zak (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Press, 2023) 272 pp. https://utpdistribution.com/9780888448378/textual-communities-textual-selves/
Essays and Articles
with Gur Zak, "Introduction," Textual Communities, Textual Selves, eds. Sarah Powrie and Gur Zak (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Press, 2023), 1-17.
"Allegories of the Formless Self in Augustine’s Creation and Bernard Silvestris’s Cosmographia," in Textual Communities, Textual Selves, eds. Sarah Powrie and Gur Zak, (Toronto: PIMS Press, 2023), 172-94.
"Keats Reading Chaucer: Troilus and Arrested Time in 'The Eve of St. Agnes'" in Keats's Reading/Reading Keats: Essays in Memory of Jack Stillinger, eds. Beth Lau, Gregory Kucich, and Daniel Johnson (London: Palgrave Press, 2022), 129-51, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-79530-6_7
"Addiction and the Reinterpretation of Desire in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy," Literature and Medicine 39.2 (2021): 351-73 (Johns Hopkins University Press), https://muse.jhu.edu/article/840480
"Criseyde, Consent, and the #MeToo Reader," New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession 2.1 (2021): 18-33, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9sz0n2bb
"A Moral Garden 'Out of Olde Feldes': Chaucer's De-allegorized Virtue in the Parliament of Fowls," Modern Philology 114.2 (2016): 170-94 (University of Chicago Press) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/687326
"Speculative Tensions: The Blurring of Augustinian Interiority in the Second Anniversary," Connotations 25.1 (2015-16): 1-18 (University of Tuebingen, Germany): recognized with the John Donne Society's Distinguished Publication Award with R. Netzley and M. Ursell https://www.connotations.de/article/sarah-powrie-speculative-tensions-the-blurring-of-augustinian-interiority-in-the-second-anniversarie/
"Knowing and Willing in Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls" Chaucer Review 50.3-4 (2015): 368-92 (Penn State University Press) https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5325/chaucerrev.50.3-4.0368.pdf
"Nicholas of Cusa's Dialogue with Augustine: The Measure of the Soul's Greatness in De Ludo Globi," Renaissance and Reformation 38.2 (2015): 5-25 (University of Toronto Press) https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/renref/search/authors/view?givenName=Sarah&familyName=Powrie&affiliation=&country=&authorName=Powrie%2C%20Sarah
"Lost and Found in Translation: Updating Chaucer's Status with the Millennial Generation," Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 22.1 (2015): 53-64.
"The Importance of Fourteenth-Century Natural Philosophy for Nicholas of Cusa's Infinite Universe," The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87.1 (2013): 33-53 https://www.pdcnet.org/acpq/content/acpq_2013_0087_0001_0033_0053
"Spenser's Mutabilitie and the Indeterminate Universe," Studies in English Literature 53.1 (2013): 73-89 (Johns Hopkins University Press) https://www.jstor.org/stable/41818884?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
"Alan of Lille's Anticlaudianus as Intertext in Chaucer's House of Fame," Chaucer Review 44.3 (2010): 246-67. (Penn State University Press), https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5325/chaucerrev.44.3.0246.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A838d127eb3211b7c2d50f5d5ce63e0bb
"Transposing World Harmony: John Donne's Creation Poetics in the Context of a Medieval Tradition," Studies in Philology 107.2 (2010): 212-35. (North Carolina University Press) https://www.jstor.org/stable/25681416?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
"The Celestial Progress of a Deathless Soul: John Donne's Second Anniversarie," John Donne Journal 26 (2007): 73-101.
Encyclopedia Entries
"Thomas Aquinas" The Chaucer Encyclopaedia. eds. Richard Newhauser, Vincent Gillespie, Jessica Rosenfeld, and Katie Walter. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023, IV:1828-29.
"Ceres" The Chaucer Encyclopaedia. eds. Richard Newhauser, Vincent Gillespie, Jessica Rosenfeld, and Katie Walter. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023, II:319-20.
"Geoffrey Chaucer: The Parliament of Fowls" The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.02: Medieval and Early Modern England, 1066-1485. eds. Kate Ash-Irisarri, David Fuller, Hugh Magennis, Jamie McKinstry, Sarah Peverly. First published 26 October 2017. (3400 words)
https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7344
"Historiography of Medieval Science," Handbook of Medieval Studies. ed. Albrecht Classen. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010, I: 666-77 “Raymond Klibansky” Handbook of Medieval Studies. Ed. Albrecht Classen. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010, III: 2418-22.
"Anneliese Meier,” Handbook of Medieval Studies. ed. Albrecht Classen. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010, III: 2494-96.
"Pierre Duhem,” Handbook of Medieval Studies. ed. Albrecht Classen. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010, III: 2276-79.
"Raymond Klibansky,” Handbook of Medieval Studies. ed. Albrecht Classen. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010, III: 2418-22.
Teaching & Supervision
ENG 111.3 Reading Poetry
ENG 112.3 Reading Drama
ENG 210.3 Literary Canons and Cultural Power
ENG 277.3 Literary Uses of Mythology
ENG 311.3 The Canterbury Tales
ENG 312.3 Early Chaucer: Dreams and Romance Tragedy
ENG 314.3 Early English Drama
ENG 393.3 Medieval Devotional Literature
ENG 402.3/CMRS 401.3 Dante's Divine Comedy
ENG 496.3 Career Internship Seminar
ENG 803.3 Medieval Dream Visions
Research
Augustine Chaucer John Donne allegory dream visions early modern history of science medieval philosophy
Sarah Powrie publishes on medieval and early modern topics. She has several publications investigating the philosophical and allegorical sources of Chaucer's dream visions. She is also interested in continuities bridging medieval and early modern periods. She has published several articles identifying ways in which early modern writers (John Donne, Edmund Spenser, Nicholas of Cusa) appropriate medieval theories of metaphysics or cognition. Her articles appear in the Chaucer Review, Modern Philology, SEL, Studies in Philology, Renaissance and Reformation, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, and the John Donne Journal.