The Reading Room

11:43 AM

@Bookworm This is one of those borderline-recommendation questions. Do we close it for asking for a list of works, or leave it open because it's well-scoped and just about the study of specific authors?

I lean towards the latter, but I might leave that First Post review for someone else.

I'd still vote to close, due to it being an X/Y problem

More or less

I'll abstain for now, though

@Gallifreyan How is it an X/Y problem? (And is that a close reason?)

It's asking for reading recommendations about Brontes' works, instead of asking about the works themselves

Well, a list of the works themselves is easy to find.

I assume the OP is studying/researching on literature rather than just reading.

For someone who's just interested in the Bronte sisters and their works, it would be more relevant to just get a list of the works themselves.

I'm mostly afraid it'd set a precedent for this sort of questions

11:56 AM

For someone who's (for example) doing a PhD on the Bronte sisters and their works, a Q&A like this would be an extremely useful starting point.

I think "essential scholarship" can be interpreted loosely enough to suggest a lot of sources, which would lead to many possibly LQ one-line answers with names of articles or links

Especially for popular authors, such as the ones we have right now

Mmm, I guess it could be seen as opinion-based in that way.

@Randal'Thor I'd assume someone doing a PhD on them to have crossed that starting point some time ago.

On the other hand, if one of our expert users can write a good long answer, that could be an amazing resource to have on our site.

@NapoleonWilson Starting a PhD, I meant. Or maybe a bachelor's thesis, then. I don't really know the expected level at different stages of study in literature - way too far from my own topic.

@Randal'Thor Yes, and starting a PhD implies a strong affinity to the topic already. You don't throw a dice for your PhD. But yes, your general argument makes sense (in the setting of the possibly questionable premise that the site ought to serve that use case), just PhD was an odd example.

12:05 PM

@NapoleonWilson That depends a lot on the country and institution. In many places, people just show up for a PhD and decide (or are given) their research topic later.

@Randal'Thor But I'd assume based on the work they've done already, rather than working 2 years in Polynesian murals before getting told "you're the Bronte expert now, go do something on them".

Q: Is there much critical analysis of "The Hunger Angel"?

Sure. As you say, it's an academic (pun intended) issue anyway. Let's replace "doing a PhD" by "starting serious research".

I definitely think this site should aim to be a useful resource for (although not only for) people doing academic research in literature.

For this particular type of question, cf.:

Herta Müller, the Romanian-born-German-novelist, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. In the same year, her novel The Hunger Angel (Atemschaukel) was published and received much laudation. Despite this, it seems to me that there has been a dearth of critical analysis of this novel (at least in...

german-literature herta-muller the-hunger-angel

That goes into a bit of a different direction, though.

Yeah, the new question has this "most universally recognized" aspect which might make it opinion-based.

On the other hand, to a Bronte scholar it might have a clear answer.

Not even that. The other question specifically notes the apparent lack of critical discussion of the work.

12:17 PM

Apparently there's a whole academic journal called Bronte Studies.

Current trends in Brontë criticism and scholarship - book chapter.

Margaret Smith: An Outstanding Brontë Scholar - obituary of someone apparently indispensable in the study of Bronte literature.

I doubt anyone doubted it was answerable.

12:41 PM

I agree with Gallifreyan that "essential scholarship" is too vague. For example, many works that are essential to someone writing a PhD on the topic would be too specialised for someone writing a master's thesis.

There is a way to make the question objectively answerable by reformulating as, e.g. "What were the 20 most frequently cited book and articles on any of the Brontë's novels between 1900 and 2010?"

But if you take such a long period of time, older works have gotten more opportunities to get cited, just by virtue of having been around longer.

That would also seems a bit of an oddly specific and weird question really.

But the waterfowl teemed in the marshes along the bay, and Sansa's merlin brought down three ducks while Margaery's peregrine took a heron in full flight. (also on Twitter). Doesn't this assume a rather small species of heron? (I guess G. R. R. Martin couldn't resist the Tolkien reference.)

1:22 PM

@IkWeetHetOokNiet That would be objective, but not what the OP wants.

> I do not want to start my research just by looking at citations and h-index performance of papers

2 hours later…

Q: Understanding a passage from The Tachypomp by Edward Mitchell

3:01 PM

@Randal'Thor I know, but answering the current question means relying on some scholar's list of essential publications, which will differ from the next scholar's list of recommendations, which makes the question subjective.

What each will list as essential reading will be influenced by the cultural and literary theories they focus on: structuralism, post-structuralism, New Criticism, feminism, postcolonialism, ... There's a whole supermarket of theories out there.

See for example Literary Theory: An Anthology: 1640 pages dedicated just to 20th-century (and perhaps some 21st-century) theories.

(For people who want to revel in older theories, there's also the The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. At 2848 pages, the hardcover edition will break the bank and your back.)

2 hours later…

Bookworm

5:06 PM

I have the following passage from The Tachypomp by Edward Page Mitchell "Without intendin' to disparage," continued the deacon, "her bottom's more putty'n timber." "Putty or no putty," rejoined the owner of the Toad, "she sails afore the wind like a thing of life and minds her heli...

meaning

Gareth Rees

6:03 PM

@IkWeetHetOokNiet See here which reports "Birds as large as Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis; about 3,100 g) hit in the head and killed in midair in Alaska" by peregrines