Returning to Primary Texts

In developing a research paper idea about a literary, it's important to circle back to that literature in light of one's developing thinking. Here's a suggested procedure:

• Summarize your current thinking, identifying one or two main directions, perhaps in terms of a question or two. With those in mind...
• Review key passages (noted by yourself or others)
• Analyze (a passage, a word, a pattern), often by using critical aids (like footnotes) or other tools (like concordances), looking for patterns (thematically, or in terms of language, form, etc.).
• Synthesize your current thinking in a brief post (which can narrate your process, not just articulate your claim or analysis)

Example from Twelfth Night

• Current thinking: What is the connection between the themes of madness and love in Twelfth Night? Is this kind of madness related to non-love types of madness?
• Key Passages
• "I am as mad as he, / If sad and merry madness equal be" (3.4.15-16)
• "But tell me true, are you / not mad indeed? or do you but counterfeit?" (4.2.107-08)
• Analyze
• I used Shakespeare Searched to look for mentions of madness in Twelfth Night. From this, it appears that madness is linked both to merriness and to sadness, and has both positive and negative connotations. Characters of all rank demonstrate various types of madness. It is associated with music, with mourning, with being lovesick, deluded, and with being either overly religious or with being overly loose in one's morals.

• Synthesize
• A repeated saying in Twelfth Night is "some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them."I am starting to see that one could say the same thing about madness. Some seem to be by nature foolish or crazy, some have events happen in their lives that bring about some kind of irrational behavior, and some become crazy because others drive them to it.