Saint Mary's

Department of English Language and Literature
Associate Professor
Phone: 902-420-5193
Office: MN305
Email: mark.barr@smu.ca

Overview

I continue to work in the area of British Romanticism, with a focus on literary and legal intersections (my interest in which arose from studying and practicing law many years ago). Recently, I have shifted from considering so-called “first-generation” figures (e.g. Coleridge and Blake) to later writers, especially John Keats. The scope of my teaching is more eclectic, encompassing the literary survey, fantasy, graphic novels, and the environment.

Publications

Book

• Romanticism and the Rule of Law: Coleridge, Blake and the Autonomous Reader. Palgrave, 2021. (244 page monograph) 

Selected Published Articles:

• "'Two Sought Adventure:' Fritz Leiber and the Architecture of Fantasy". Extrapolation 55:1 (Spring 2014): 1-24.
• "The Forms of Justice: Precedent and Gloss in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." English Literary History,78:4 (Winter 2011) 863-889.
• Prophetic Poetry. In Roland Greene, ed., Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4^th ed.  (2 pages). (Solicited contribution).
• "The Common Law Illusion: Literary Justice in Coleridge's On the Constitution of the Church and State." College Literature,35:3 (Summer 2008) 120-41.
• "Practicing Resistance: Blake, Milton and the English Jury." European Romantic Review, 18:3  (2007) 361-79.
• "Prophecy, the Law of Insanity, and The [First] Book of Urizen." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 46:4 (Autumn 2006) 739-62. 
• "The Lyric Dispensation: Coleridge, Mosaic Law, and Equivocal Authority in 'The Eolian Harp.'" Studies in Romanticism, 44:3 (Fall 2005) 293-316.