Picture of Sarah Powrie, STM

Sarah Powrie, STM B.A., Hons. (Saskatchewan), M.A. (Queen's), M.A. (Toronto), Ph.D. (Toronto)

Professor

Faculty Member in English
STM Faculty Member in English

Office
St. Thomas More 446

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, having 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.

Publications

Book

Textual Communities, Textual Selves, edsSarah 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, edsSarah 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

Recipient of the USSU Teaching Excellence Award, 2010
Recipient of the STM Teaching Excellence Award, 2015 
Courses Taught

English110.6 Literature and Composition

English 111.3 Reading Poetry

English 112.3 Reading Drama

English 202.6 Reading the Canon: Texts and Contexts

English 210.3 Literary Canons and Cultural Power

English 277.3 Literary Uses of Mythology

English 311.3 The Canterbury Tales

English 312.3 Early Chaucer: Dreams and Romance Tragedy

English 314.3 Early English Drama

English 313.3 Middle English Literature

English 393.3 Medieval Devotional Literature

English 402.3/CMRS 401.3 Dante's Divine Comedy

English 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.

Education & Training

 
B.A. English, University of Saskatchewan
 
M.A. English, Queen's University
 
M.A. Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
 
Ph.D. Medieval Studies, University of Toronto