Celebrating Success: Daniel Evans

This is the second article in our 2019 news series celebrating high performing Pembroke undergraduate students and recent alumni in their examinations.

Daniel Evans (BA English Language and Literature, 2016) recently completed his final year at Pembroke achieving a first. We caught up with him to congratulate him on his recent success, as he discusses his passion for Old Norse and Medieval Latin, and his recent scholarship toward his graduate studies.  

"I first applied to study English at Oxford, and Pembroke especially, because of the vibrant community of medievalists working here. Now having just graduated, I have got far more out of this experience than I ever could have hoped.

In the final two years of my degree I opted to take Course II; a specialised course in medieval literature. This allowed me to immerse myself in the studies about which I am passionate, including Old Norse and Medieval Latin. But without doubt the highlight of my degree was my final-year dissertation. Focusing on the relationship between two Old English poems, I make the case for sophisticated literary borrowing from one poem by the other. I hope to publish it in reworked form in the coming months, and this has only been possible because of the world-leading tutors and resources available to me during my time here.

With the generous aid of Pembroke’s Forty Scholarship, I am now able to start a one-year Masters degree in English (650-1550) at St Hilda’s College. My Masters research will continue the work I have done as an undergrad, looking at processes of influence between Anglo-Saxon poets writing in both English and Latin."