Research Paper Textual History
“I Hear America Singing” Walt Whitman
Please use MLA format for all notes and bibliography.
Length: 1500 words, typed, double-spaced
You will need to find at least FOUR outside sources for this poem, including:
1.a scholarly edition of the poem
2.a biography of the poet or general literary history of the poet’s time
3.two scholarly articles
The first two of these items (edition and biography) can be found in the book catalogue of the MLK Library. Biographies are full-length books, as are books entitled The Collected Poems of Poet X or The Collected Work of Poet X. Other scholarly editions include the Norton Critical Edition series and some editions of selected works. Be sure you find a serious, scholarly work with introduction, commentary, footnotes and bibliography. You may also use editions that you find on the Internet, but be careful. There are many good literary sites out there, usually connected with universities, but there are many that are inadequate. If you have any doubts, please email me the URL. San Jose State English Department has many links to good literary websites and you may find this a useful place to start. To find articles you will need to use the MLA Bibliography (available on the King Library website). Look for articles that deal with some aspect of the text itself. We will be having a class session with Peggy Cabrera, the English Literature librarian and you will be able to explore this more fully at that time.Please write a textual history of this poem. Was it hand written? Does the manuscript survive? Where is the manuscript today? Are you able to find a copy of it? What is the subsequent publication history of this work? What differences can be noted in different editions? Did the author him or herself make changes to the text? Did a subsequent editor change the text? Where is the work found today? What different audiences have earlier editions been intended for? Are the words used with their expected meanings for that time? You may need to check the history of word usage in an historical dictionary such as the Oxford English Dictionary. Analyze any textual differences between the poem as presented in 100 Best Loved Poems and the scholarly edition. This research is intended to make you aware of the importance of considering the history of text itself when writing about literature. Include an annotated bibliography with this paper. You must provide 2 or 3 sentences describing the content of each of the items in your bibliography (i.e. the 4 or more items you found in 1-3 above). Use MLA format for the bibliography.
