My latest peer-reviewed article, “John Bunyan in Abolitionist Periodicals,” can now be found online. It is published in American Literature, widely considered to be one of the finest in my scholarly field.
Well, maybe good use was a bit optimistic a measure of my ability, but basically, we'll be covering Toni Morrison's Beloved in class sometime in the future, so I'll be reading around the moment of the novel. Since I'm only an A-level student (this would be my Junior year in the US), and I have to juggle 5 or so subjects with eng lit, I don't have enough time to go through the primary texts and so on (and be able to precipitate a handful of quotes that I need 1) to be able to remember 2) use for any question that might come up in a possible exam), and journal articles are still a good deal more rigorous and useful than layman overviews and wikipedia summaries. Of course your article is about Bunyan, but it's also about abolitionist literature, and it'll probably have condensed insights that I'll be able to pluck and use as needed to give context to the period surrounding the civil war, and so understand 1) what Toni Morrison would be looking at when she looked at the literature of the period for her novel and so 2) help me find out where her novel is situated between its topic and the era from where it was, since ofcourse its set in the 1850s, but it's written in 1987, so looking at some literature of both periods will help me look at what the novel is interested in, subtextually(?), whether (like, I suppose, Shakespeare) it uses the civil war period but is situated in the discourse surrounding Toni Morrison, or situated in the discourse surrounding its setting, and any blend thereof. Sorry if this is a bit poorly thought out or simply nonsensical. There is also the general disclaimer that, due to my own weakness, there is only so much I can understand out of real scholarship.
Not old, not a specialist, but I'm certain I'll be able to make good use of that article in a few months' time.
That's gratifying to hear! May I ask what for? I'm just curious to know how this kind of stuff might be useful.
Well, maybe good use was a bit optimistic a measure of my ability, but basically, we'll be covering Toni Morrison's Beloved in class sometime in the future, so I'll be reading around the moment of the novel. Since I'm only an A-level student (this would be my Junior year in the US), and I have to juggle 5 or so subjects with eng lit, I don't have enough time to go through the primary texts and so on (and be able to precipitate a handful of quotes that I need 1) to be able to remember 2) use for any question that might come up in a possible exam), and journal articles are still a good deal more rigorous and useful than layman overviews and wikipedia summaries. Of course your article is about Bunyan, but it's also about abolitionist literature, and it'll probably have condensed insights that I'll be able to pluck and use as needed to give context to the period surrounding the civil war, and so understand 1) what Toni Morrison would be looking at when she looked at the literature of the period for her novel and so 2) help me find out where her novel is situated between its topic and the era from where it was, since ofcourse its set in the 1850s, but it's written in 1987, so looking at some literature of both periods will help me look at what the novel is interested in, subtextually(?), whether (like, I suppose, Shakespeare) it uses the civil war period but is situated in the discourse surrounding Toni Morrison, or situated in the discourse surrounding its setting, and any blend thereof. Sorry if this is a bit poorly thought out or simply nonsensical. There is also the general disclaimer that, due to my own weakness, there is only so much I can understand out of real scholarship.