The July Progress Report: Dire.

               My productivity having taken a hit from New York Gay Pride, I just now getting back into a groove, studying on three separate tracks. First, I am reading the entirety of Michael McKeon’s The Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740, about fifty pages a day. Second, I am reading a leisurely chapter-or-three/day of Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), which has proved surprisingly pleasurable considering how long-winded it is. And, third, I am playing catch-up, writing blurbish summaries of the essays comprising The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader.

               My plan the past few days was to start studying in a way similar to that of BarBri students preparing for the Bar Exam, alternating studying at both the macro- and micro- registers. So, I would attack the “forest” by setting up an expansive outline for myself that covers pretty much all of the material I have on my lists (probably relying on a Norton and a History of English Lit I have lying around), so as to give me a sense of the connections, limits, continuities, and textures that will make up my exam as a whole. And then work on the individual “trees” by continuing my relatively close reading of Radcliffe and McKeon, filling in the former with my notes on the latter as I deem appropriate. This alternating between the forest and its trees, would continually contextualize whatever close reads I am doing, close reads that I might otherwise lose without an overarching structure to organize them. It’s easier to learn about Wordsworth when you read him already knowing (basically) how he relates to Coleridge, Romanticism etc.    In fact, it might be easier to learn about Wordsworth if I get myself a clear understanding of what Romanticism is beforehand. Much to my private embarrassment, studying the late Eighteenth century and early Nineteenth century English literature all on my own is seriously exposing the ignorances consequent of my rigidly Victorian literary predilections. Unfortunately, time and energy constraints (laziness?) have prevented my initiating the macro-level of my studying. Maybe I need to put down one of the three texts I am currently juggling to make that happen?