Bret van den Brink

MA Candidate
bret.vandenbrink@mail.utoronto.ca

Campus

  • Downtown Toronto (St. George)

Fields of Study

  • Early Modern Literature
  • Environmental Humanities
  • Literary and Critical Theory
  • Poetry and Poetics
  • Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature
  • Romantic and Victorian Literature
  • Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Literature

Areas of Interest

  • Religion and Literature

Biography

I received my BA English from Trinity Western University, where I wrote my honours thesis on Neoplatonism and chastity in English romances following the Reformation, including Sir Philip Sidney’s New Arcadia, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and John Milton’s Comus. As I pursue my SSHRC-funded MA at the University of Toronto, I am becoming increasingly attentive to the anthropomorphic and sacramental portrayals of nature in English romances.

List of Publications 

  • “Beatrice Nest, White Goddess: Romance and Ecology in A.S. Byatt’s Possession: A Romance.” The Robert Graves Review: The Online Journal of the Robert Graves Society, vol. 1, no. 4, 2024. Forthcoming.
  • “What You Will: Double Predestination and the Plot of Twelfth Night.” Sinestesieonline: Periodico Quadrimestrale Di Letteratura E Arti Della Modernità, vol. 40, 2023.
  • “Compassion’s Sweet Poison: The Sources of Thomas Merton’s ‘Origen.’” The Merton Annual: Studies in Culture, Spirituality and Social Concerns, vol. 35, 2023, pp. 151–62.
  • “Beasts and Bestiality, Deities and Deification: Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy in Milton’s Comus.” The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English, vol. 24, 2022, pp. 9–23.

Selected Presentations

  • “Falling in Love: Romance and the Metaphysics of Love in Sidney’s New Arcadia.” The Sixteenth Century Society, Toronto, 1 November 2024.
  • “‘This Wonderful Man’: George MacDonald’s Reception of Sir Philip Sidney.” George MacDonald and the Prophetic Imagination, The George MacDonald Society, Wheaton College, 28 May 2024.
  • “The Gifts of Galadriel: Marian Ecology in Middle Earth.” ConVersing/ConServing: Care, Creation, Communion: The Western Regional Conference for Christianity and Literature, Trinity Western University, 11 May 2024.
  • “The Sacred Truth of Fiction: Sidney, Tolkien, and Hart.” Inklings Institute of Canada, Trinity Western University, 23 January 2024. (Invited Presentation)
  • “‘Lest Christ Should See’: Demonic Parody in The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Victorian Recollections, Revolutions, and Realities, Carroll University, 4 May 2023.
  • “Lighting the Blessed Fire of Love: Henri de Lubac’s Influence on Thomas Merton’s ‘Origen.’” CREATE Conference, Trinity Western University, 26 August 2022.

Cohort

  • 2024-2025