Dr Jean David Eynard, Pembroke

je370@cam.ac.uk

 

Biographical Information

I am a Teaching Associate and Director of Studies for Part IB of the English Tripos at Pembroke College. I grew up in Italy, and moved to the UK to undertake my university studies. After completing a BA in English at QMUL, I obtained an MSt from New College, Oxford, and worked on my PhD at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Prior to my return to Pembroke, I was a Stipendiary Lecturer at Brasenose College and St John’s College, Oxford.

Research Interests

I specialise in early modern literature and intellectual history. I am currently in the process of completing my first monograph, Discordant Poetics: Tasso to Milton. Taking its cue from the frequent early modern comparisons between specific literary techniques (e.g. phonetic harshness, archaisms, grammatical disorder, and syntactic delay) and the use of dissonance in music or visual disharmony in painting, my research demonstrates the role of discord as a significant aesthetic principle across the different arts—from music and poetry, to architecture and painting. I study these interdisciplinary parallels in relation to early modern epic writing in particular, offering a fresh perspective on the stylistic developments of the period.

I have also started work on a new project on synaesthesia in early modern literature and culture, which aims to recover a rich tradition of thinking about the interplay of different sensory faculties of perception. As part of this research, I am actively interested in early modern discussions of sensory disability, and how sensory organs may replace each others' functions. I contend that medical and theological discourses on this topic not only shed light onto the recurrent association of different sensory faculties in the literature of the period, but may also allow us to better appreciate the kinship between synaesthesia and metaphor—both involving a crossover between different domains, whether of language or perception.

Further academic interests include: monosyllables; economic criticism; hyphens; mock tragedy; stylistic imitation; book history; learned satire; battology; classical reception; overinterpretation.