Sam Wallbank (UK)

I am proud to represent Northern England at Ertegun House, growing up in Warrington in a room stacked high with novels. I graduated with First Class Honours in English from St Hilda’s College in 2024, and I am beyond excited to remain in Oxford to study for an MSt in early modern literature.

During my MSt research, I hope to engage with some of the best writers in the English canon—Shakespeare, Milton, Donne—as well as the lesser-known early moderns who read and responded to their works. What is the effect of reading a poem in which Romeo remains a lover, but never dies? Does it matter that one of Shakespeare’s players wrote a comedy that sounds suspiciously like King Lear? My thesis will suggest that early moderns were haunted by such hopeless masterpieces, both responding to the words of the texts and revising the plays into new forms that exorcised some of the brutality of early modern tragedy.

During my undergraduate degree at Oxford, I volunteered as a mentor for Zero Gravity, working to make admissions to elite universities more accessible. I am incredibly grateful for the generosity of the Ertegun family, and hope to promote a love for literature both inside Ertegun House and beyond during the next academic year.