Premium
Working with Anonymity: A Theory of Theory vs. Archive
Author(s) -
Griffin Robert J.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00426.x
Subject(s) - griffin , summit , anonymity , wynn , panel discussion , compass , history , library science , psychology , sociology , classics , computer science , law , cartography , linguistics , philosophy , geography , political science
Abstract This paper is part of a Literature Compass cluster arising from a panel entitled ‘Working the Early Modern Archive’, originally presented at the 2005 MLA conference held in Washington DC. This session, arranged by the MLA Division on Methods of Literary Research, was chaired by Elizabeth Hageman (University of New Hampshire) and included papers by Jennifer Summit (Stanford University) on readers and medieval manuscripts, Lena Cowen Orlin (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) using a case study of archival research and the discovery and recovery of missing 17th‐century materials, and Robert J. Griffin (Texas A&M University) on the relationship between archival research and theoretical approaches. The two pieces included in this Literature Compass special panel cluster highlight the different ways in which archival research continues to shape and to invigorate 17th‐century literary studies: ‘Working the Early Modern Archive: The Search for Lady Ingram’, Lena Cowen Orlin, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741‐4113.2007.00425.x ‘Working with Anonymity: A Theory of Theory vs. Archive’, Robert J. Griffin, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741‐4113.2007.00426.x It is a commonplace that sustained research in the archive has the potential to challenge and subvert received ideas in any field. But to allow this to happen, we must slow down our speed of processing material and allow anomalies to appear. Often, powerful yet faulty theories continue to be repeated when the evidence points elsewhere. One has not only to research an archive, one also has to be alert to the way previous interpretations have shaped one's own presuppositions. Only then do discoveries become discoveries by virtue of their status as anomalies. A careful consideration of the history of anonymous publication puts in question standard historical narratives about authorship and thus requires us to rethink our most ingrained assumptions and procedures for dealing with texts.