English Literature

Keeping Track of Research for your Undergraduate Humanities Dissertation and Using Gale’s Digital Resources

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│By Jessica Crawley, Gale Ambassador at the University of Lancaster│

So, you’re a humanities undergraduate writing a dissertation, are you? If you’re anything like me, then you’re already finding this process as overwhelming as it is exciting. You have likely never taken on a research project this vast before, and that’s okay! You’re already on the right track by clicking this blog, and by the end of your dissertation process you’ll be a pro. Most of these skills are transferrable to essays too so, even if you aren’t writing a dissertation, this blog will still be of use to you.

This is the blog that I WISH someone had written when I first started researching for my dissertation: I was clueless, directionless, and – honestly – a little bit scared to start. If you’re having any of these feelings too, then after this blog they will hopefully start to melt away. I’ll be mainly referencing Gale’s Digital Resources, but if you don’t have access to any of these then speak to your library about any similar resources they may have to offer.

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Leaning Into The Great Gatsby and Other Primary Sources

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Still from the Film “the Painted Flapper"

│By Caley Collins, Gale Ambassador at University College London (UCL)│

At 100 years’ old, The Great Gatsby is more popular than ever. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal 1925 novel encapsulates the obsessive nature of the American Dream alongside investigating truths about love and desire. Novels like this are one example of a primary source, with primary sources being first-hand accounts of contemporary periods and phenomena.

Needless to say, various types of primary source should be positioned differently within the creation or evidencing of an argument, and each source has many arguments that can be drawn out from it. But what are the best ways to use these primary sources? This post will guide you through the process of finding and using primary sources from Gale Primary Sources, starting with The Great Gatsby.

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How A Girl Should Be: How Female Experiences Have Changed Over Time

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│By Olivia McDermott, Gale Ambassador at the University of Liverpool│

As International Women’s Day begins to approach, it seems fitting that we should reflect upon the many ways in which the female experience has changed over time.

Historically, from a patriarchal lens, the female experience has been aligned with ideas of subjugation, inferiority, and passivity. With the societal expectations of marriage and childrearing being deemed as intrinsic aspects of womanhood, up until the early Victorian period, women’s freedoms were extremely limited. However, this began to change by the end of the eighteenth century, as the passing of The Education Act (1870) allowed girls to receive the same education as boys.

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Applying Animal Theory to Gale’s National Geographic Virtual Library

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| By Jessica Crawley, Gale Ambassador at Lancaster University |

National Geographic is not only a non-profit organization, but also a media company that has taken the printing world by storm. Readers have been using the National Geographic Magazine to scratch that adventurous itch since the magazine’s first publication in 1888, quite literally placing a gateway to the non-human world at the fingertips of human hands. The magazine has sold millions of copies in 40 different languages to date, pairing fascinating visuals with a layman-friendly tone, making it the perfect companion for any reader with an interest in science, wildlife, and exploration.

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Going off Script: How Gale Primary Sources Can Be Used in Theatre Studies

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│By Olivia McDermott, Gale Ambassador at the University of Liverpool│

For a subject such as drama, primary sources are continuously overlooked. Much academic study preceding degree level tends to focus on the practical realm of theatre. Though it is an important aspect, this sometimes leads to contextual ideas being ignored.

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The Big Leap: Top Tips for History Coursework moving from A-Levels to University

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│By Lydia Clarke, Gale Ambassador at the University of Leeds│

Moving to a completely new place is incredibly challenging. After A-Levels, I know the last thing you want to think about is university assignments, but I promise they are not that scary. Whilst there is sadly not a magical wand to whisk away university stress, this blog post will hopefully help you manage your coursework without burning out. Gale Primary Sources digital archives were massively helpful for me to find relevant primary source material and get to grips with practising my critical thinking skills. I will demonstrate how in my first year at university I used a book I found in Eighteenth Century Collections Online to apply and evaluate my analysis of the debate about gender studies in history for my coursework.

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Top 10 Tips for Researching with British Literary Manuscripts Online

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British Literary Manuscripts Online interface

│By Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull, Senior Gale Ambassador at the University of Oxford│ Researching literary manuscripts is difficult. In the years following their production, primary sources have often been spread across different institutional libraries around the world. This makes accessing them complicated and expensive, particularly for early career researchers and those conscious of the impact that travelling … Read more

Using Gale Historical Newspapers to Explore the Representation of Coastal Wreckers

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The Wreckers, 1791 by George Morland

|By Ellen Boucher, Gale Ambassador at the University of Bristol|

One of my History modules this year, Outlaws, focused on the robbers, bandits and smugglers on the outskirts of society. For my final presentation for the module, I chose to study maritime wreckers using Gale’s Historical Newspapers, to explore how Daphne du Maurier’s novel Jamaica Inn, published in 1936, fitted into a changing narrative surrounding wreckers. ‘Wreckers’ was the name for those who would strip grounded or wrecked ships of valuable contents. Originally, they have been portrayed as dangerous criminals, in marked difference to other pirates and thieves we studied during this module, whose history has often been romanticised. Instead, wreckers, who were typically opportunists who saw themselves as having a right to the bounty from ships, were portrayed as dangerous and murderous criminals who would purposefully lure ships to wreck. This is the type of wrecker Daphne du Maurier presents in her antagonist, Joss Merlyn, a cruel and violent criminal.

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Examining the Emergence of Gothic Literature in the Early Nineteenth Century

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Gothic castle shrouded in mist

│By Holly Kybett Smith, Gale Ambassador at the University of Portsmouth│

The late eighteenth century was a turbulent time for those in power. Across Europe, monarchies were clinging to their authority by threads: the American Revolution saw British imperial rule challenged, and in France, Louis XVI was unseated from his throne, putting an end to the Ancien Régime. Simultaneously, as the French people rebelled against their absolute monarch at home, the Haitian Revolution saw self-liberated slaves free themselves from French colonial rule. Everything, everywhere, was in flux. With all of this in mind, it’s no surprise that the spirit of the era formed the crucible for the birth of the Gothic literary genre.

When discussing the Gothic in academic circles, we tend to ascribe the origins of the genre to one particular work: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, published in 1764. This is because Walpole himself described his tale as “Gothic” – the first noted use of this term to describe a piece of literature, as opposed to an architectural style. But one novel does not make a genre, and as the eighteenth century marched into the nineteenth, Gothic literature grew to encompass new components, stretching itself into the shape we recognise today. For more information on the Gothic as it evolved into contemporary horror, take a look at this blog post by my fellow Gale Ambassador, India Marriott.

In this blog post, meanwhile, I’m going to examine the emergence of early Gothic literature as it began to appear at the start of the nineteenth century – and explore how we can study this using Gale Primary Sources.

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An Overview of the Romantic Period using The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive

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Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1817)

|By India Marriott, Gale Ambassador at the University of Nottingham|

The Romantic period describes an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that emerged throughout Europe at the close of the eighteenth century and moving into the nineteenth century. The Romantic period came as a response to the preceding ‘Age of Enlightenment’, moving away from rational individualism towards a more ‘romantic’ view of the world. Furthermore, many critics have pinpointed the Romantic period as a direct result of the ideals of the French Revolution that emerged at this time, allowing for further revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Enlightenment era.

Romanticism places significance on imagination, emotion, freedom, and individualisation, in addition to suspicion of science and industrialisation post-Enlightenment. Furthermore, Romanticism places an importance on the power of nature and the natural world, which resulted in the creation of the concept of the Sublime, which I will explore further within this article.

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