My name is Michael Smith. I am a translator, illustrator and performer of Middle English texts. I recreate the lost world of medieval romances through words, pictures and performance and also act as a historical consultant to those seeking to bring these stories alive today. 

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• To buy my books and highly limited edition prints, please click here

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• For events, readings and consultancy, please click here

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• I am published by Wilton Square Books. For more information please click here

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Background

 

I hold a BA honours degree in History and an MA in Medieval Literatures and Languages, both from the University of York. I am currently a PhD research student working on the effective presentation of medieval Middle English texts.

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I have also studied as a printmaker at the Curwen Print Study Centre at Linton, near Cambridge, UK, where I was subsequently awarded CPSC certification levels 1 and 2 by Stanley Jones MBE and Chloe Cheese in 2011 and 2012. 

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I continue to study and develop my printmaking under the expert guidance of my friend and mentor, Sue Jones of Stoneman Press.

 

Interests

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My particular area of interest is in medieval  Middle English romances and the way their narrative was conveyed - through writing, illumination and public reading.

 

I believe these texts present a unique insight into how people in medieval times responded to their environment, both through sight and through sound.

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But I am also inspired by landscape and the role played by humans over time in shaping it. Place-names, rivers, historic monuments and their location in the landscape are all things which inspire me.

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Through my art, writing and performance  work I hope to share some of this with you - and to stimulate further thinking about how people in earlier times interacted with, and thought about, their world.

 

The humanity of the old

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In Britain, old cultures from many ages surround us in the fields, hills and architecture of the land. Their voices emerge at quiet moments and in unexpected places.

 

Once, when I was resting in the golden light of a Herefordshire evening at Kilpeck, a woman walked towards me across a hazy field.

 

"It doesn't get much better than this", I said to her, as I relaxed in the shadow of that Norman church and castle.

 

"It does if you live in Wales", she replied in a lilting accent fresh from the hills.

 

This is Mythical Britain. Welcome to my world!

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(Colour photos of me at the Thin Ice Press at the University of York on this page, courtesy of Tom Knevitt)