Oliver Clarkson

Oliver Clarkson is a Departmental Lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford, specializing in English Literature (1660-1830). His academic focus spans 17th to 19th-century literary criticism, Romantic poetry, and classical influences in literature, with a particular emphasis on William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

• University of Oxford, Faculty of English
• Departmental Lecturer in English Literature (1660-1830)

His research explores stylistic imperfections in Wordsworth’s poetry as aesthetic virtues, drawing on John Ruskin’s theories. He is co-editor of a three-volume edition of Shelley’s letters contracted with Oxford University Press, and his publications analyze Romantic rhyme structures, Wordsworth’s lyric moments, and Ovid’s metamorphic influence on Romantic epics.

Clarkson’s recent articles investigate poetic techniques across Palgrave and Oxford journals, with keywords spanning Romanticism, manuscript studies, and classical reception. He teaches courses on 18th-century poetry, the English and American ode, and supervises FHS and Prelims papers at Lady Margaret Hall.