Bret van den Brink

Bret van den Brink received his MA at the University of Toronto and his BA (Hons) at Trinity Western University. He wrote his honours thesis on Neo-Platonism and chastity in English romances following the Reformation, including Sir Philip Sidney’s 1593 Arcadia, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and John Milton’s Comus.

He has received SSHRC funding for both his PhD and his MA; he has also won The Conference on Christianity and Literature’s 2024 Undergraduate Writing Award. His current research interests turn around two foci: anthropomorphic and sacramental portrayals of nature in English romances, as well as poetic echo and allusion (especially to John Milton and/or by Wallace Stevens).

List of Publications 

• “Paradise Lost’s ‘Sad Cure’ as a Source for Wallace Stevens’s ‘Cure Beyond Forgetfulness’ in ‘The Rock.’” Notes and Queries, Oxford UP, 2025.
• “Philoclea’s Vows: Falling in Love, Protestant Neo-Platonism, and the Structure of Romance in Sidney’s New Arcadia.” Movable Type, vol. 15, 2025. Accepted and Forthcoming.
• “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.
• “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.