Summary of the impact

St Andrews has, for several decades, been a centre of critical and editing work on medieval poetry, which has enabled unusually broad cultural dissemination, facilitating for example, Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. Working within this tradition, Chris Jones' research on the uses of Old English in contemporary poetry, in conjunction with colleague Jacob Polley's practice-led research in the form of medieval-inspired poetry has (1) raised public awareness of an historically remote and linguistically difficult area of English literary heritage often thought to be obscure or inaccessible; (2) inspired new forms of interdisciplinary artistic expression; (3) contributed to economic prosperity in the creative sector. The users of the research outlined in this case study include: a publishing company; a museum visitor centre; a visual artist and other craftspeople and designers; an independent literary festival; the reading, listening and museum-going public.