Dr Grace Attwood

 PhD research: Dr Grace Attwood (2022)

Obscurity Has Another Tale to Tell: The Reception and Modification of Latin Literary Models in Ireland during the early Middle Ages

Early Medieval Irish literary and intellectual culture was shaped by the reception and re-elaboration of Late Antique literature and educational practices. Against this background, a vibrant corpus of Hiberno-Latin texts began to develop a highly unusual, obscure style known as ‘Hisperic’. This research questions the context, development, and motivations underlying textual obscurity in Hiberno-Latin and Irish vernacular materials between the seventh and ninth centuries. Using as comparanda texts from other Medieval Latin traditions, it re-considers the attribution of ‘Hisperic’ materials to an Irish provenance and aims to provide insight into the relationship between Ireland the wider scholarly milieu of the early Middle Ages.

E-mail: grace.attwood@universityofgalway.ie
Supervisor: Dr Jacopo Bisagni
Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship (2017–2021)

Research area: the Latin tradition