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Kate McLoughlin is a Professor in English Literature at the University of Oxford. She studied for a BA in English Language and Literature at Oxford and an MPhil in Renaissance Literature at Cambridge before qualifying as a barrister. She then worked for the Government Legal Service, with stints at the European Commission in Brussels, the Conseil d'Etat in Paris and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, before returning to Oxford for a DPhil in English. Thereafter, she held posts at the University of Glasgow and Birkbeck, University of London. Her other books include Authoring War: The Literary Representation of War from the Iliad to Iraq (2011) and Veteran Poetics: British Literature in the Age of Mass Warfare, 1790DS2015 (2018) and, as editor, The Cambridge Companion to War Writing (2009) and The Modernist Party (2013). She holds a diploma in piano performance from the Royal College of Music and occasionally publishes poetry.
This is a magnificent work, exhilarating in the breadth of its journeys through time, across religious divides, and from intimate lullabies to public protests. McLoughlin has written a British literary history for our times, alert to the unsaid and the suppressed, teeming with variegated riches, demonstrating the power of dauntless reading, deep scholarship, and contemplative curiosity as we listen for the voices of the living past. * Alexandra Harris, author of Weatherland: Writers & Artists Under English Skies * Silence: A Literary History is a fascinating journey through English Literature, from the Middle Ages to the present, by way of its absences, stillnesses, and breakings-off. Kate Mcloughlin writes beautifully, with great erudition, and revels in the paradox of being so eloquent on the subject of missing words. * Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl * Intellectually ambitious in the best way, Kate McLoughlin's new book offers an extraordinary meditation on literary silences. When so many critical studies are focused on texts within a defined period, it is quietly exhilarating to be taken through twelve centuries of different kinds of silence by such a learned and thoughtful guide. This is a powerful, deeply considered account which looks set to become the standard point of reference for years to come. * Fiona Stafford, author of Time and Tide: The Long, Long Life of Landscape * Silence: A Literary History richly demonstrates how much there is to say about the gaps, pauses, cessations and quiet places of literature. Kate McLoughlin provides an erudite and readable tour of literary silences in their many moods and variations, combining acute close readings with sweeping breadth. This is, to a rare extent, both a learned and a moving book. * Joe Moshenska, author of Making Darkness Light: The Lives and Times of John Milton * [Silence] dazzles not only for its encyclopedic reach but its sinuous way with words. ... It will take time for this book to sink in but we suspect it will go down as a landmark. * Richard Lofthouse, QUAD *
