Dr Natalie Harries

Biography

Natalie Tal Harries is a Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen where she is working on the AHRC-funded project, The Edinburgh Edition of Walter Scott’s Poetry: Engaging New Audiences. She is also an Early Career Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies (University of London) where she is working on the late Indian influences of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her other research interests are primarily focused on the esoteric reading and supernatural scholarship of certain Romantic poets, and the influence of this on their creative process and their poetry.

External Memberships

Early Career Research Fellow -- Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Research Overview

My research is focused on late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English literature, especially British Romantic poetry. I am particularly interested in the following aspects of Romanticism:

• Influences, reading practices and the creative process
• Creative exchange and collaboration
• Manuscript studies
• Syncretism, ancient symbolism and mythopoetics
• Folklore, superstition and fairy tales
• Metaphysical enquiry, esoteric research and poetic visions
• Nature, the sublime, and the supernatural
• Poetry as a vehicle for experimentation, exploration and transgression
• Radical ideas and social critique
• Relationship between literature, philosophy, science and religion

Current Research

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Late Indian Influences

Examination of accounts by members of the Pisan circle recollecting their own experiences in India, including Thomas Medwin, Edward and Jane Williams, and Edward Trelawny. Analysis of journals, notebooks, letters, and related publications in order to reconstruct elements of these first-hand accounts and explore the influence on Shelley’s poetry as his interest in India was revived.

Walter Scott’s Supernatural Sources

Study of Walter Scott as a collector, scholar, and distributor of supernatural texts, examining the influence of these sources on Scott’s own poetry and the work of other Romantic writers.

Women, Madness and Magic in Walter Scott’s Chapbook Collection

Collaborative research project on the depiction of women’s madness in relation to the supernatural in chapbooks from Scott’s collection at Abbotsford Library as a potential influence on Scott’s work.

Past Research

Conference and Seminar Papers

• ‘imitation is a globe of precepts’: The Williams/Trelawny Notebook and Medwin’s Indian Journal – Science and/or Poetry: Interdisciplinarity in Notebooks Conference (University of Lancaster: 27-28th July 2023).

• Unveiling ‘the treasures that would charm a bibliomaniac’: Walter Scott’s Supernatural Scholarship and Romantic Reading Communities – Libraries, Lives and Legacies: Reading and Book Circulation, 1650-1850 (University of Stirling: 17-18th April 2023).

• ‘scenery of a fairy dream’: Walter Scott and the Romantic ‘community of fable’ – BARS Digital Events 2002-23 (Online Roundtable: 8th December 2022).

• 'treasures that would charm a bibliomaniac': Walter Scott’s Supernatural Sources – RIISS New Voices in Irish and Scottish Studies (Online Seminar: 22nd November 2022).

• Thomas Medwin’s ‘Indian Journal’ and Shelley’s ‘visioned wanderings’ – The Shelley Conference 2022 (Keats House, London: 8-9 July 2022).

• The ‘pervading spirit’ and the ‘painted veil’: Shelley’s Late Hindu Influences – From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria: Readings in 18th and 19th Century British Literature and Culture, 7th Conference (Warsaw, Poland: 25-27 September 2019).

• The Sublime of Man: Ancient, Intercultural Interactions in Coleridge’s ‘Religious Musings’ – Romantic Interactions (Kraków, Poland: 3-4 April 2019).

• ‘Supreme Reality’ or ‘Fruitful Falsity’: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the ‘Potentates of inmost Ind’ – BARS 2013: Romantic Imports and Exports (Southampton: 25-28 July 2013).

• The ‘pervading Spirit’ and the ‘painted veil’: Percy Bysshe Shelley and the Prospects of Hinduism – NASSR 2012: Romantic Prospects, The 20th Annual North American Society for the Study of Romanticism Conference (Neuchâtel, Switzerland: 15-19 August 2012).

• ‘The One Life Within Us and Abroad’: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Indian Thought at Coleridge Romanticism and the Orient: Cultural Negotiations, An International Conference (Kobe, Japan: 16-18 July 2011).

• The ‘Deep Truth’: Algernon Charles Swinburne and The Shelleyan Quest for Meaning – The Swinburne Centenary Conference (Senate House, London: 10-11 July 2009).

Funding and Grants

• British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS) Stephen Copley Research Award (2020)
• Friends of Coleridge Travel Bursary (2011)
• AHRC Block Grant Partnership Award (2009-2012)