Bibliographic Research Assignment #3

INTRODUCTION: Reflections of a Researcher
 

Assignment 1: Recent Studies in Restoration & 18th-Century Literature
 

Assignment 2: Critical Website Evaluation
 

Irene Delilly HOME

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Completed: March 20, 2008

The search parameters I used were simple at first, then as I began to see the article titles and topics, I added new key words to my search. I began with the author’s name to see if there were any articles related to his background or about the historical context that he wrote in. I found a couple articles that dealt with history, Welsh nationalism, and the philosophies at the time that may have influenced Gray’s work. Next, I added the title of the poem and ran a search with both the author and the title. This produced the most results, many of them critical essays and journal articles. After that, I tried using just the poem’s title without the author’s name to see if there was anything listed. However, I received a lot of the same stuff from previous searches. I also looked up the key words “melancholy,” “Romanticism,” and “mathematical poets.” I chose these words because I kept seeing them in the tiles and abstracts, so I assumed they were important key topics in the texts. Using more specific words, in conjunction with the author’s name and work, narrowed my search drastically. One obstacle that I did run into, however, was finding sources that were written in different languages. I found articles written in Italian and Japanese, which was interesting. My bibliography list might have been longer if I were able to read those other articles. In my opinion, there was too little information about this writer and the poem assigned. Some of the topics appeared to overlap and possibly talk about the same stuff. I did not want to have too many articles or books that were about the same thing. In addition, some articles compared his work to other writer’s work, but not as much as I would have liked were written on Gray alone. Yet, there was definitely enough to write a solid research paper on. Some of the sources that I think will prove most helpful in writing a critical essay are: Herbert Willmarth Starr’s Twentieth century interpretations of Gray's Elegy, Michele Turner Sharp’s “Elegy unto Epitaph: Print Culture and Commemorative Practice in Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and Amy Louise Reed’s The background of Gray's Elegy; a study in the taste for melancholy poetry, 1700-175. Lastly, I did not see too much cross-over between MLA and WorldCat, possibly because the MLA site dealt mostly with journal articles and WorldCat lists mostly books.

        Andreescu, Gabriel.Algorithms and Meanings in Mathematical Poetics.” Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 1987; 32: 17-15.

        Bloom, Harold. Thomas Gray's Elegy written in a country churchyard. New York : Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.

        Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning. “A Source for the Epitaph in Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews, 2003 Summer; 16 (3): 18-19.

        Kaul, Suvir & Christine Gerrard ed. Thomas Gray, Elegy Writen in a Country Church Yard.” A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry. Malden , MA : Blackwell; 2006. xv, 605 pp.

         Oohinata, Gen.Thomas Gray, 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” Eigo Seinen/Rising Generation, 2007 Aug; 153 (5): 296-97.

         Parker, Agnes Miller. Elegy written in a country church yard / Thomas Gray. Norwalk , Conn. : Heritage Press, 1951.

         Prescott, Sarah. “Gray's Pale Spectre': Evan Evans, Thomas Gray, and the Rise of Welsh Bardic Nationalism.” Modern Philology: Critical and Historical Studies in Literature, Medieval Through Contemporary, 2006 Aug; 104 (1): 72-95.

         Raymond, Mark.Marked by Melancholy: The Character of the Pensive Text in Gray and Keats.” Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 2005 Oct; 66 (4): 1364. New York U, 2005.

         Reed, Amy Louise. The background of Gray's Elegy;
a study in the taste for melancholoy poetry
, 1700-1751. New York : Russell & Russell, 1962.

         Sharp, Michele Turner. “Elegy unto Epitaph: Print Culture and Commemorative Practice in Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics of Language and Literature, 2002 Winter; 38 (1): 3-28.

         Starr, Herbert Willmarth. Twentieth century interpretations of Gray's Elegy;
a collection of critical essays.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1968.

         Weinfield, Henry. The poet without a name: Gray's Elegy and the problem of history. Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, 1991.