Internalizing Literature: You Are What You Read

Christina Mangiapani

Mentor:

Co-Mentor: Mary Ann Judge

Background:

Over the past few years, I’ve attempted to avert the tiniest bit of monotony in writing literary analyses, despite being an English Literature major—theory is our livelihood. Whenever it has been offered, I’ve taken advantage of creative options for class assignments. Through these exercises I’ve learned how I most like to interact with literature—surprisingly enough it’s not through deconstruction, feminist, new critical, or historical theory/analysis. In one of these projects I examined Edgar Allan Poe’s assertion that we are a “species of despair which delights in self-torture.” In response, I created my own version of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” employing Poe’s style and basic plot but with a female narrator, in an effort to argue the difference between the male and female psyche. I see similar issues being wrestled with in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birth-mark” and would like to extend this experiment/exercise/study with a broader reach.

Current Project:

I’d like to keep this project in, generally, the same line of thinking. What I would like to do is take these ideas about the “dark, perverse, or masochistic” and “perfection-seeking, flaw-hunting” elements of humankind (of Poe and Hawthorne, respectively) and make an argument for how they contribute to, or feed, one another. How am I going to do this?

Plan for the Next Two Months:

I want to internalize the ideas and philosophies illustrated in “The Birth-mark” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” So, my plan is to become intimately acquainted with the aforementioned stories and the ideas/concepts presented within them as well as the writing style and process of the authors (as much as is possible).

Ideas about How to Present this Work:

After we (the stories and I) are both exhausted from too much time spent in each others company, I will proceed to create my own creative piece of writing, or “intimate critique,” that presents my own take on the interplay among these ideas while mimicking the style of one author and modeling it on the storyline of another. After, or while, I compose the piece of writing, I’m going to include meta-commentary in the form of either footnotes or endnotes to explain, clarify, and justify my argument and stylistic choices.

Tentative Bibliography:

Poe, Edgar A. "The Tell-Tale Heart." Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 2492-2495.

Poe, Edgar A. "The Philosphy of Composition." Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 2521-2529.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birth-mark.” Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 2276-2287.

Freedman, Diane P. The Intimate Critique. Duke University Press, 1993.

            …and more, I’m sure.