• DPhil: The Reputation and Influence of George Herbert to 1715
    Oxford University, 1984
  • BA: English Language and Literature
    University of Birmingham, 1976

My research concentrates on three main areas of early modern English literature: (1) devotional writing, particularly lyric poetry; (2) Shakespeare, particularly the tragicomedies; (3) early women’s writing, particularly poetry and autobiography.

My work on devotional writing focuses on the religious poetry and prose written in English in the seventeenth century, a time of intense dilemmas over devotional identity. I have published many articles on the work of writers such as John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, George Herbert, An Collins, Henry Vaughan, ‘Eliza’ and their contemporaries. My annotated edition of The English Poems of George Herbert was published by Cambridge University Press in 2007 (paperback, 2011) and has been highly acclaimed by fellow-scholars and general readers alike. More recently I co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern English Literature and Religion (Oxford University Press, 2017) with my Bangor colleague, Andrew Hiscock. My Shakespeare studies centre on his tragicomedies: that is, his so-called ‘problem plays’ and the romances. These plays are particularly fascinating for their alternative solutions to the challenges of tragedy and comedy, and for their female roles. I have published several essays in the field of gender and genre in Shakespeare, and my Arden 3 edition of All’s Well That Ends Well, co-edited with Suzanne Gossett, is due out in 2018. I also have a long-standing interest in early modern women’s writing, and one of my first books was the co-edited anthology of seventeenth-century women’s autobiographical writings, Her Own Life (1989), which is still in print and seen as a pioneering work in the field. I have also published Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700 (1996) and numerous articles on seventeenth-century women authors, raising questions of identity, voice, wit and religion. I contributed the chapter on the early modern period to the Cambridge History of Feminist Literary Criticism.

It will be clear that these three main areas of interest overlap considerably, since the women’s writing on which I work includes many devotional texts, and my focus on Shakespeare highlights issues of gender. They are also linked by certain recurring issues: the definition of genres (lyric, tragicomedy, autobiographical writing); the nature of early modern communities (held together by religious belief, literary allegiances, gender, or family), and the prevailing question of identity in the early modern period. Since none of this research can be carried out on literary works in isolation, the relationships between literature, history, religion, music and the visual arts form the vital interdisciplinary context of my work.  This inter-relation of literature (by women and men), music, devotional experience and political contexts is central to my monograph, 1611: Authority, Gender and the Word in Early Modern England (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).

2018

  • PublishedAll's well that ends well
    Gossett, S. (ed.) & Wilcox, H. (ed.), 29 Nov 2018, 3rd ed. Bloomsbury. 440 p. (The Arden Shakespeare)
    Research output: Book/Report › Book › peer-review

2017

2016

2015

  • PublishedThe King James Bible in its Cultural Moment
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Killeen, K. (ed.), Smith, H. (ed.) & Willie, R. (ed.), 27 Aug 2015, The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England: c. 1530-1700. Oxford University Press
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

2014

2011

  • Published"That I may sit and write": Herbert's Presence in Recent British Poetry
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H. & Hodgkins, C. (ed.), 1 Jan 2011, George Herbert's Travels: International Print and Cultural Legacies. 2011 ed. University of Delaware Press, p. 243-256
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • Published"When I writt I wept": the epistolary rhetoric of Lady Arbella Stuart
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H. & Bollmann, A. (ed.), 1 Jan 2011, A Place of Their Own: Women Writers and their Social Environments (1450-1700). 2011 ed. Peter Lang, p. 87-106
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedEarly Modern Sacred Space: Writing The Temple (141-162)
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Sterrett, J. (ed.) & Thomas, P. (ed.), 1 Jan 2011, Sacred Text - Sacred Space: Architectural: Spiritual and Literary Convergences in England and Wales. 2011 ed. Brill, p. 141-162
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedGeorge Herbert
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H. & Corns, T. N. (ed.), 1 Jan 2011, The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell. 2011 ed. Cambridge University Press, p. 183-199
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedLiterary Arts
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H. & Kinney, A. F. (ed.), 1 Jan 2011, Elizabethan and Jacobean England: Sources and Documents of the English Renaissance. 2011 ed. Wiley-Blackwell, p. 587-594
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedMeasuring up to Nebuchadnezzar: Biblical Presences in Shakespeare's Tragicomedies
    Wilcox, H. E. & Streete, A. (ed.), 1 Jan 2011, Early Modern Drama and the Bible: Contexts and Readings: 1570-1625. 2011 ed. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 48-67
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedNew Directions: Women Beware Women and the Arts of Looking and Listening
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H. & Hiscock, A. W. (ed.), 1 Jan 2011, Women Beware Women: a critical guide.. 2011 ed. Continuum, p. 121-138
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedSacred desire, forms of belief: The religious sonnet in early modern Britain
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Cousins, A. D. (ed.) & Howarth, P. (ed.), 1 Jan 2011, The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet. 2011 ed. Cambridge University Press, p. 145-165
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

2010

2009

  • Published"Joves great Priviledge": Identity and mortality in early modern women's writing.
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Ghose, I. (ed.) & Renevey, D. (ed.), 1 Jan 2009, The Construction of Textual Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Literature.. 2009 ed. Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen, p. 177-197
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • Published"This verse marks that": The Bible, editors, and Early Modern English texts.
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Finch, J. (ed.), Johnson, A. (ed.) & Gill, M. (ed.), 1 Jan 2009, Humane Readings: Essays on Literary Mediation and Communication in Honour of Roger D. Sell. 2009 ed. John Benjamins Publishing Company, p. 17-30
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedAnne Clifford and Samuel Pepys: Diaries and Homes.
    Wilcox, H. E. & Wilcox, H., 1 Jul 2009, In: Home Cultures. 6, 2, p. 149-161
    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
  • PublishedIn the Temple Precincts: George Herbert and Seventeenth-Century Community-Making.
    Wilcox, H. E., Sell, R. D. (ed.) & Johnson, A. W. (ed.), 1 Jan 2009, Writing and Religion in England: 1558-1689.. 2009 ed. Ashgate, p. 253-272
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedLyric Poetry
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H. & Knoppers, L. (ed.), 1 Jan 2009, The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing. 2009 ed. Cambridge University Press, p. 208-221
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

2008

  • Published"She on the hills": traces of Roman Catholicism in seventeenth-century English protestant poetry.
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Van Dijkhuizen, J. F. (ed.) & Todd, R. (ed.), 1 Jan 2008, The Reformation Unsettled: British Literature and the Question of Religious Identity: 1560-1660. 2008 ed. Brepols Publishers, p. 9-33
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • Published'Prophesying in Part': the Prophetic Voice in Unexpected Genres.
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Cottegnies, L. (ed.) & Gheeraert-Graffeuille, C. (ed.), 1 Jan 2008, Les voix de Dieu: littérature et prophétie en Angleterre et en France à l'âge baroque. 2008 ed. Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, p. 199-212
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedDrums and Roses? The Tragicomedy of War in All’s Well That Ends Well.
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., King, R. (ed.) & Franssen, P. J. (ed.), 1 Jan 2008, Shakespeare and War. 2008 ed. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 84-95
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedGendered Authority: Cleopatra in English and Spanish Golden Age Drama.
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Walthaus, R. (ed.) & Corporaal, M. (ed.), 1 Jan 2008, Heroines of the Golden Stage: Women and Drama in Spain and England 1500-1700.. 2008 ed. Kassel, p. 32-49
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
  • PublishedNeedy Nothing Trimmed in Jollity.
    Wilcox, H. E., Dutcher, J. M. (ed.) & Lake Prescott, A. (ed.), 1 Jan 2008, Renaissance Historicisms: Essays in Honor of Arthur F. Kinney. 2008 ed. University of Delaware Press, p. 313-329
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

2007

2006

2002

  • PublishedLiterature and the Household in the Civil War and Commonwealth Era.
    Wilcox, H. E., Wilcox, H., Loewenstein, D. (ed.) & Mueller, J. (ed.), 1 Jan 2002, The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature. 2002 ed. Cambridge University Press, p. 737-762
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

1999