Undergraduate Researcher of the Year
College of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences

Trenton Olsen is an English major with an emphasis in literary studies and minors in sociology and business. He has loved his undergraduate research experience and particularly enjoyed working on his Honors thesis with Dr. Brian McCuskey. The project compares the poetry of the contemporary Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, to the famous Romantic writer, William Wordsworth. While scholars have long been interested in Wordsworth’s influence on Heaney, Trenton has demonstrated a stronger correspondence than has yet been indicated through a close reading of Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” and Heaney’s “Changes.” Heaney’s poem, he argues, though largely overlooked by critics, engages most directly with Wordsworth’s best-known piece. His analysis provides important insights into the similarities as well as the oft-neglected differences between these two prominent writers. Trenton will be presenting his research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in April and plans to submit his work for publication later in the year.

While his main interest lies in British poetry, much of Trenton’s work has taken an interdisciplinary approach and transatlantic scope to the study of nineteenth century literature. The first of these projects was an independently researched examination of social barriers to intercultural romantic relationships in Henry James’s Daisy Miller (1878). This led to his first conference presentation at the Intermountain Graduate Conference, where he was the only undergraduate to present. He also enjoyed sharing his findings at the state capitol and discussing its contemporary relevance regarding cross-cultural interaction in an increasingly diverse society, and controversy surrounding the institution of marriage, with lawmakers and individuals from a variety of backgrounds. Other projects include a comparison of the treatment of death in the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Henry W. Longfellow, contextualizing it within the period’s popular phenomenon of spiritualism and the conflict between scientific and religious thought; he will presented this at the Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research in February.

After graduating in May, Trenton plans to enroll in a PhD program in English literature. In addition to his research, his extensive teaching experience in both the Rhetoric Associates and the Supplemental Instruction programs will be a great benefit to him in preparing for a career as a professor at a research university.