On December 18th, 2023, Prof. Nigel Smith (Princeton University) held the 12th Ernst Robert Curtius Lecture under the title “Is Poetry Political Thought?”, which was followed by a workshop the next day. Nigel Smith, Professor of Ancient and Modern Literature at Princeton University. Smith’s major works include Andrew Marvell: The Chameleon (Yale UP, 2010), Is Milton better than Shakespeare? (Harvard UP, 2008), Literature and Revolution in England, 1640-1660 (Yale UP, 1994) and Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English Radical Religion 1640-1660 (Oxford UP, 1989). He has edited the Journal of George Fox (Penguin, 1998), the Ranter pamphlets (1983; rev. edn. Pluto Press, 2014) and co-edited the Oxford Handbook to Milton (2009) with Nicholas McDowell. His work Polyglot Poetics: Transnational Early Modern Literature (Princeton University Press) is shortly forthcoming, followed by Ratios of Adjustment: An Early Modern Global Poetics and a general study of poetry as political thought. Smith also studies, writes, performs and records songs with ‘The Unheard Melodies Project’ and ‘Second Flea’.