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Centre Director
Professor Sarah Alyn Stacey is Professor in French in the Department of French, Trinity College Dublin. In recognition of her research she was elected to Fellowship (2004) and membership of the Académie de Savoie and in 2017 the French President awarded her the title of Chevalier de l'ordre national du mérite. Her main research and publishing area is French Renaissance poetry, with specific reference to Marc-Claude de Buttet, the Court poetry of Savoy, the influence of the Pléiade, Classical and Italian influences on French Renaissance poetry, and hermeneutics. She has also published on the seventeenth-century poet Saint-Amant, contemporary French women's writing, Franco-Irish links in World War Two and Franco-Irish sporting links.
Publications
Her publications include the following eleven refereed books:
1. Marc-Claude de Buttet: Œuvres poétiques I: Le Premier Livre des vers (1560) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2022)
2. Marc-Claude de Buttet: Œuvres poétiques II: Le Second Livre des vers (1560) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2022)
4. New Perspectives on Heretical Discourse and Identities: The Waldensians in Historical Context, ed. with Joanna Poetz, Medieval and Early Modern French Studies, 19 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2021)
5. (ed.) Political, Religious and Social Conflict in the States of Savoy, 1400-1700, Medieval and Early Modern French Studies, 13 (Oxford, Peter Lang, 2014), 327 pp.
6. (ed.) Court and Humour in the French Renaissance: Essays in Honour of Professor Pauline Smith (Geneva, Peter Lang (2009) 272 pp.
7. Marc-Claude de Buttet (1529/31-86), l’honneur de la Savoie, Études et Essais sur la Renaissance, 70 (Paris, Honoré Champion, 2006), 235 pp.
8. (ed.) Culture and Conflict in 17th-Century France and Ireland, Dublin, Four Courts (2004), 288 pp. [with Véronique Desnain]
9. Marc-Claude de Buttet: "L'Amalthée" (1575), Textes de la Renaissance, 74 (Paris, Champion 2003), 584pp.
10. (ed.) Essays on Heroism in Sport in Ireland and France (Lampeter, Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), 220 pp.
11. (ed.) Texte(s) et Intertexte(s), Faux Titre 139 (Amsterdam-Atlanta, Rodopi, 1997), 294 pp. [with E. Le Calvez and M.-C. Canova-Green]
Recent articles
‘Du nouveau sur la bibliothèque de Jean de Piochet: un tome annoté du Perceforest (Gilles de Gourmont, 1532; Archives départementales de la Manche, BIB ANC C257), Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 86.2-3 (2024), pp. 289-32
Other publications/research outputs
For ten years (1996-2007) she was Associate Editor of the journal Renaissance Studies published by Blackwell. She was a long-standing member of the Council of the Society for Renaissance Studies and, in 2008, organized the third Biennial Interdisciplinary Conference of the Society in Trinity College Dublin. On her initiative, the Society for Renaissance Studies established an Irish Branch and an Undergraduate Prize in 2012 which she coordinated. She also served for six years as a member of the Executive Council of the Society for French Studies. Between 2013-2018 she served on the editorial board of H-France.
College positions
- Board of Trinity College Dublin (2016-2024), University Council (2018-2021)
- College Finance Committee (2018-2021)
- Standing Committee of Fellows (2010-present)
- Central Fellowship Committee (2019-2022)
- Grounds and Gardens Consultative Group, Capitation Committee
- She has served also as Chair of the Board of the Trinity Graduate Student Union.
Research supervision
Professor Alyn Stacey is willing to supervise students in the areas of French Renaissance literature, Italian and Classical influences on French Renaissance literature, the Court of Savoy in the 16th century, French Renaissance Thought, and Late-Medieval French Poetry.
Professor Sarah Alyn Stacey
Room 4105, Arts Building
Visiting Research Fellows
- Dr Piers Benn
- Dr Alexandra Corey
- Dr Susan Foran
- Mr James Harpur (Visiting Writer)
- Dr Gavin Hughes
- Dr Biörn Tjällén
- Professor Sae Kitamura
- Dr Patricia McKee
Mr James Harpur (Visiting Writer)
James went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read Classics and graduated with a degree in English Literature. At Cambridge he developed a fascination with the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius and later published a translation of the poems from that book (Fortune’s Prisoner, Anvil Press, 2007). James is primarily a poet, but with a scholarly interest in medieval and early modern history, particularly religious history. His latest non-fiction book, Dazzling Darkness: The Lives and the Afterlives of the Christian Mystics (Hurst, 2025), is a survey of Christian mystics, from St Paul to Thomas Merton. He has also published a history of pilgrimage in the West (The Pilgrim Journey (SPCK, 2016).
James is a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of the arts, and has won many prizes for his work, including the Michael Hartnett Prize, the Vincent Buckley Award, the J.G. Farrell Prize, and the UK National Poetry Competition. His poem, ‘St Ita’s Lullaby’, based on the vision of St Ita of Killeedy, was set to music by the composer Nicola LeFanu and performed at the Westminster Abbey Carol Service on 23 December 2024.
James is the Centre's first Visiting Writer. As part of his work for the CMRS, James is engaged in translating a selection of the love poems of Pierre de Ronsard. He also participated in the conference to mark the 500th anniversary of Ronsard’s birth (1524), giving a paper on Ronsard’s ‘Elegy XXIV’, often referred to by the first line, beginning: ‘Escoute, Bucheron …’ James compared Ronsard’s heartfelt elegy about the desecration of his beloved local forest of Gastine (felled for commercial purposes) to similar tree-lamenting poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Mew.
James was also one for the speakers at the CMRS conference to celebrate the re-opening of Notre-Dame de Paris in November 2024. His paper, ‘The Mystic Ark: Notre-Dame, Sacred Space and the Poetic Imagination’ explored the nature of holy places and the condition of the sacred, arguing that the poetic imagination (akin to what William Blake referred to as ‘Double Vision’) was a requisite for an appreciation of sacredness. (James also gave this paper at the AFIS conference at the university of Caen, in May 2025.)
Following the Notre-Dame conference, James’s latest poetry book, The Gospel of Gargoyle (featuring a dialogue between an animate gargoyle and a poet residing at the Irish College in Paris, and set on the roof of Notre-Dame) was launched at the United Arts Club, Dublin, with support from Trinity College and the French Embassy. Excerpts from the book were performed by members of Dublin’s Stage and Screen Society. The Gospel of Gargoyle is a signed, limited edition with artworks by Paul Ó Colmáin, and published by Eblana Press.
Directors of Research Networks
Over the years, the Centre has organised its research activities through a series of research networks directed by eminent colleagues in the field.
Dr Barbara Crostini, B.A. (Oxon.), D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Byzantine Studies Research Network
Dr Barbara Crostini Lappin has been collaborating with the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies now for a number of years. She secured funding from the European Science Foundation for a workshop on the theme: '"Convivencia" in Byzantium? Cultural Exchanges in a Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Lingual Society', which took place in Trinity College 1-3 October 2010. She has acted as supervisor for one of the Centre's Ph.D. candidates (Dr Savvas Neocleous) looking at the interaction of Greeks and Latins around the time of the Crusades. Drawing on her expertise in the study of Greek manuscripts gained at the Vatican Library and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Dr Crostini Lappin has taught courses andgiven seminars on the skills required in reading and interpreting these ancient Greek documents to graduate students at the Queen's University of Belfast and at Trinity. In particular, the Chester Beatty Library hosted a teaching seminar which she conducted in 2004, and now she is involved in the first in-depth project of cataloguing the considerable collection of Greek Manuscripts at Trinity, benefiting from the Long Room Hub funding initiative. The aim of this project is to make available scholarly descriptions of Trinity manuscripts on-line with links to digital images from the manuscripts themselves.
Dr Gerald Morgan, FTCD (1993), M.A. (Oxon.), D.Phil (Oxon.)
Chaucer in Context Research Network
Member of the Centre’s Editorial Board
Dr Morgan is one of the foremost Chaucer scholars of his generation. A Meyricke Exhibitioner at Jesus College, Oxford, he holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford. Until his retirement, he was a Senior Lecturer in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin and for many years has been the Research Director of the 'Chaucer in Context Research Group' of the Trinity Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He also serves on the Centre's Editorial Board. Dr Morgan is also founder and Director of the Chaucer Hub. The author of some 40 articles and 10 books, his works include Geoffrey Chaucer: The Franklin's Tale, The London Medieval and Renaissance Series (London, 1980; reprinted Dublin, l992); Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Idea of Righteousness (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, l99l); The Tragic Argument of Troilus and Criseyde, 2 vols (Lewiston, Queenston, and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005); The Shaping of English Poetry: Essays on 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Langland, Chaucer and Spenser (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010) was the first in a series of four volumes which explore major developments in early-modern English poetry: The Shaping of English Poetry: volume 2: Essays on 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Langland and Chaucer (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013) and The Shaping of English Poetry: volume 3: Essays on 'Beowulf', Dante, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Langland, Chaucer and Spenser (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013) were launched in Trinity's Long Room Hub on 10 May 2013 by Professor Jane Roberts (University of London); his fourth volume in this series, The Shaping of English Poetry: volume 4: Essays on 'The Battle of Maldon', Chrétien de Troyes, Dante, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and Chaucer, was published in 2017 (Oxford: Peter Lang) and was launched in the Senior Common Room in Trinity College Dublin. His book, Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012), is a significant collection of articles by some of the most eminent Chaucer scholars of this period. It was launched in Trinity’s Long Room Hub on 11 May 2012. Dr Morgan's volume of essays, 'Truthe is the beste': A Festschrift in Honour of A.V.C. Schmidt, co-edited with Nicolas Jacobs, was published in 2014 (Oxford: Peter Lang).