Siobhan Chomse

My research focuses on the idea of the sublime and its role in the literature of early imperial Rome. I am interested in examining the ways in which Roman authors including Virgil, Lucan and Tacitus use the sublime to express the tensions and instabilities they perceive in imperial society, and in exploring the part irony plays in modifying the sublime to give voice to these anxieties. My work has explored expressions of sublimity found in architecture, technology and the natural world, from monuments to ruins, siege engines to earthquakes and volcanoes. At present, I am revising my doctoral thesis for publication as a monograph and beginning to think about a new research project. This next project will investigate the depiction of the Roman emperor as a sublime being in Latin literature and beyond.