Isobel Boles

    Isobel Boles

  • Graduate Student
  • Email
  • Office: 6416 Dwinelle
  • Office hours: Fall 2023: TBA

Isobel earned dual Bachelor of the Arts degrees in Classics, and German and Scandinavian Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2015. While there, she studied Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, Swedish, and Old Irish languages and literature. She has taken summer courses at Háskóli Íslands and Háskólasetur Vestfjarða in modern Icelandic as well, and has attended the Uppsala International Summer Session to study Swedish. Her undergraduate thesis was titled “Courtly Romance in Cold Lands: Ívens saga, Parcevals saga, and Erex saga,” and explored how thirteenth-century Old Norse adaptations of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes are reflective of Scandinavian cultural and literary values. Isobel presented a paper based on her thesis at the 36th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum in the spring of 2015 at Keene State College. Her current academic interests include the riddarasögur, theories of medieval translation and adaptation, and literary interactions between Scandinavia, France, and the British Isles during the Middle Ages. She is also interested in echoes of medieval Scandinavian literary themes in modern works, such as the novels and stories of Selma Lagerlöf and Sigrid Undset.