Theodore Ell

Theodore Ell has been with ANU since 2015. He studied literature and modern languages at the University of Sydney and was awarded a PhD in 2010. As well as Canberra and Sydney, he has lived in Bologna, Florence and Beirut.

Theodore's research focuses on Australian, English and Italian literature. His major project is a new biography of Australian poet Les Murray. Theodore's analysis of Murray's writing style and working methods has been published in Australian Literary Studies. Theodore also reviews essay collections, poetry, fiction and translations for the Australian Book Review.

In 2022, as a member of the ANU Centre for Early Modern Studies, Theodore began a new project to compile an historical anthology tracing the development of Italian sonnet, from its earliest appearances in 13th century Sicily to its status as artistic 'currency' in the High Renaissance, and its entry into the English and French literatures. 

Between 2018 and 2024, Theodore paid special attention to the cultural history and literature (in French and English) of Lebanon, where he lived from 2018 to 2021. Theodore won the 2021 Calibre Essay Prize for 'Façades of Lebanon,' his account of narrowly surviving the Beirut port explosion of 4 August 2020. The essay was published in the July 2021 edition of the Australian Book Review. In July 2024, Atlantic Books Australia published Theodore's book Lebanon Days, a full account of the social, cultural and political upheaval that he witnessed in Lebanon, and of the startling ideas, hopes, dreams and delusions people had shared with him, regarding the country's nature and future.

The poetry collection that Theodore completed while living in Lebanon, Beginning in Sight, was published in June 2022 by Recent Work Press (Canberra) and shared the 2022 Anne Elder Award.

Theodore has written extensively on the Florentine author Piero Bigongiari (1914-1997) and his generation. Theodore's research and publications have revealed key lost works and documents, discovered in archives in Florence, Pistoia and Milan. His research has been published in The Italianist, Quaderni del ‘900, Modern Greek Studies, Mosaici and in the definitive reference work for the study of Bigongiari’s period and contemporaries, L’ermetismo e Firenze (Hermeticism and Florence, Firenze University Press, 2015). Theodore's book A Voice in the Fire (Troubador Italian Studies, Leicester UK, 2015), based on his PhD and later research, is the first major biographical and critical study in English of Bigongiari’s war writing and anti-fascism.

In addition to this work, Theodore has written on Italian Enlightenment science for Earth Sciences History and on new interpretations of Dante for the Australian Book Review and the Dante Alighieri Society. He has translated works by Italian poets Mario Luzi, Paolo Fabrizio Iacuzzi, Paolo Febbraro and Paolo Totaro, and philosophers Luigi Pareyson, Mario Perniola and Paolo Diego Bubbio. 

Theodore's poetry has been published extensively in anthologies, journals and newspapers in Australia and overseas, including Best of Australian Poems 2022, PN Review, Australian Book Review, The Canberra Times, The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald. In 2012, he co-founded the journal of international literature Contrappasso Magazine, which he served as co-editor for four years. He has given guest lectures at the University of Florence and Downing College, Cambridge.

BA (Languages) (Hons I), MPub, GCPP, PhD

* Italian literature and history

* Australian literature

* Literature from and about Lebanon and the Levant

* Literary representations of conflict, survival and resilience

* Literary travelogues

* Philology and biography

* Archival research methods

* Methods for transcribing and interpreting archival documents