Dr. Merrilees Roberts

Biography

Merrilees Roberts is a Teaching Associate in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge, specializing in Romantic poetry. Her academic journey began with a BA from Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, followed by an MA in Writing and Society from Queen Mary University of London. She completed her PhD focusing on the interplay of shame and reticence in the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Roberts has extensive teaching experience in Romanticism, Philosophy, Politics, and Art History at QMUL before joining the Cambridge English Faculty in 2025. Her research interests encompass literature and philosophy, literary theory, poetics, lyricism, affect theory, existentialism, and medical humanities. She authored the monograph "Shelley’s Poetics of Reticence: Shelley’s Shame" published in 2020, which delves into the rhetorical and moral dimensions of shame in Shelley’s work. Currently, she is organizing 'The Shelley Conference, 2024' at Keats House Museum, focusing on posthumous poems. Her forthcoming publications include essays in the Keats-Shelley Journal and various works that engage with Shelley’s collaborations and emotional expressions in poetry.

Research Interests

Experience