Recent graduate and tutor in English language and literature - English tutor with Adam

Adam is extremely reliable and knowledgeable, with a strong understanding of the literature of different time periods. He is also an attentive listener, and I am sure he will prove a dedicated and thoughtful tutor.

It is with tremendous pleasure that I write in support of Adam Walters’s application for the post of Tutor. I was Adam’s Director of Studies for the majority of the time he spent in Cambridge (2014-17), and have supervised him for the Shakespeare paper in Part I of the English Tripos and for the Practical Criticism and Tragedy papers for Part II. I support his application with great warmth and enthusiasm.

Adam is a brilliant student who has at his disposal wide reading, a truly capacious intelligence and impressive critical sophistication. He received a very strong First in Part II of the Cambridge English Tripos (ranked twentieth amongst all Part II candidates; I’m fairly confident that he would have been ranked even higher if his handwriting had been better!). The highlights of his Tripos performance were marks of Distinction in two of the most challenging papers: a 78 on Paper 2 [Tragedy] and a 75 on Paper 16 [History and Theory of Literature]).

Adam’s critical approach is strongly influenced by his deep interest in philosophy. His work this year in particular has demonstrated his great ability to build intellectually rigorous arguments in response to both the primary texts and the secondary material he has explored. In his writing as well as in supervisions and classes, he consistently draws in conceptual and philosophical questions. His writing is impressively cogent and suggestive He reads and thinks with sophistication and an honest intellectual curiosity. As one supervisor wrote:

Adam has a strongly conceptual mind, a wide range of reading at his disposal, and admirable powers of assimilation, qualities that allow him to get very far very quickly with difficult material and find ways of lucidly laying out a given writer's territory and central preoccupations. He has produced wonderfully informed, intelligently insightful essays on Emerson, James, Crane, and Ashbery, each of which has revealed a mind deeply immersed in the material to hand and ranging freely, in a confident and thoughtful manner. Given that he is able to articulate some crucial dimensions of a writer's art with such seeming ease and accuracy, he only needs now to pursue his own questions more boldly and to sharpen his arguments.

Supervisors’ main concerns about him related to whether he realised quite how much (extremely good stuff) he had to say. But he has taken both positive and negative feedback on board and has grown intellectually as well as personally through the course of his three years in Cambridge.

Adam’s very fine Part II dissertation, on Wallace Stevens's verse in the light of German idealism (and Hegel in particular), was a subtle and suggestive reading that demonstrated both a tremendous familiarity with a wide range of Stevens's extensive output, and a truly formidable engagement with much nineteenth century philosophy. His central suggestion – that Stevens productively resists both idealist and materialist positions – seemed to me not only convincing, but also a very productive way of challenging standard accounts of Stevens's evolution (or lack thereof). Adam’s grasp of the relevant philosophical context was evident and extremely impressive, as was his capacity to provide not only exposition but also critical engagement. In terms of going on to graduate work, the dissertation showed great promise. Adam’s proposed M.A. work – thinking about the relation between poetry and philosophy, especially German Idealism – picks up on his very substantial strengths. He has identified a valuable area of research, about which he’s enthusiastic and curious, and I’m sure that the work will yield rich fruit.

Adam is unassuming, quiet, courteous and highly conscientious. He was always well-prepared for classes and supervisions. His deep thoughtfulness and the care with which he approached all his work made it a pure pleasure to work with him.

Adam has my warm and enthusiastic support. He seems to me an ideal candidate for graduate studies. I hope you will be able to find not only a place for his, but as much funding as there is available.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further assistance.