LibGuides: ENGL 432: Middlemarch: Great 19thC Novel: Getting Started

On Reserve (Spring 2017)

The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot by George Levine (Editor)
Call Number: PR4688 .C26 2001
Publication Date: 2001
Provides accessible introductions to all aspects of George Eliot's writing by some of the most distinguished new and established scholars and critics of Victorian literature.
George Eliot's Middlemarch by Harold Bloom
Call Number: PR4662 .G4 1987
Publication Date: 1987
A collection of critical essays on Eliot's "Middlemarch" arranged in chronological order of publication.
George Eliot: The Critical Heritage by David Carroll (Editor)
Call Number: PR4688 .C3 2009
Publication Date: 2009
The Critical Heritage series gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature, presenting contemporary responses to a writer's work.
George Eliot and the British Empire by Nancy Henry
Call Number: PR4692.I46 H46 2006
Publication Date: 2006
Introduces a set of facts that place George Eliot's life and work within the contexts of mid-nineteenth-century British colonialism and imperialism.
The Victorian Period: the intellectual and cultural context, 1830-1890 by Robin Gilmour
Call Number: PR461 .G55 1993
Publication Date: 1994
Provides synthesis of the Victorian period, focusing on the themes of science, religion, politics and art. Examines the developments which radically changed the intellectual climate and illustrates how their manifestations permeated Victorian literature.
Darwin's Plots: evolutionary narrative in Darwin, George Eliot, and nineteenth-century fiction by Gillian Beer
Call Number: PR878.E95 B43
Publication Date: 1985
Focuses on how writers, including George Eliot, responded to Darwin's discoveries and to his innovations in scientific language.
Disorienting Fiction: the autoethnographic work of nineteenth-century British novels by James Buzard
Call Number: PR868.N356 B89 2005
Publication Date: 2005
This volume reads 19th century British novels as committed to the project of a fictional autoethnography that might locate and salvage British cultures against the backdrop of potentially boundless possibilities for the exercise of Britain's power.
The Powers of Distance by Amanda Anderson
Call Number: PR468.S6 A53 2001
Publication Date: 2001
Examines the progressive potential of those forms of cultivated detachment associated with Enlightenment and modern thought and explores a range of practices in nineteenth-century British culture, including methods of objectivity in social science, practices of omniscience in artistic realism, and the complex forms of affiliation in Victorian cosmopolitanism.

Start Your Research at the Library!

Use this guide to get started with your research for ENGL 432:

Middlemarch: Great 19th Century Novel

The cover of Book I of Middlemarch, entitled ‘Miss Brooke’. George Eliot’s novel was published in eight installments (‘books’) between December 1871 and December 1872. Image from the British Library.

Some Advice from Your Friends in the Library

Please DO:

Start Early! Work on your project consistently each and every week, so that materials have time to arrive from other libraries and we can answer your questions when you still have sufficient time to thoughtfully revise your work.
Seek out a variety of sources: books, essays in books, journal articles.
Use a variety of search tools: Primo, multiple databases, sometimes even Google Scholar.
Keep careful notes on all of your sources. If an online knowledge management tool like Zotero or RefWorks is not for you, make sure that any system that you do use is thorough.
Contact a librarian whenever questions arise. Quick questions can be answered via email; more in-depth questions can be handled best with an appointment.

The BEAM Framework

Research is connected to your writing. Relevant sources will address your questions and fit your purpose. BEAM is an acronym intended to help students think about the various ways we might use sources when writing a researched argument. Joseph Bizup, an English professor at Boston University, outlined the framework in a 2008 article. The idea has since been refined and adapted by many others.

Start with an Idea

Begin your research with an idea and then brainstorm possible aspects and angles.

Use a concept map to help you organize your thoughts. Concept maps are a tool to help you:

explore your topic;
discover possible lines of inquiry;
consider search terms;
brainstorm resources to investigate.

Ask yourself: what do I already know about my topic? what am I curious about? what kind of data do I need, and where am I likely to find that data?

From a disciplinary perspective, think about what kind of questions scholars and experts in that discipline are interested in, and how they would ask those questions or measure their findings.

The process is simple: start with a subject in the center, then:

In the space around the central concept, write words or phrases for any relevant subtopics.
For each of your focus subtopics, add related terms/concepts to your map.