Deep South v.1 n.2 (May, 1995)
Why do we do research? Because it's an addiction, that's why. There's nothing quite like poring over primary material--as soon as I read Lady Bradshaigh's letter in which she said that she'd shed a pint of tears over the ending of Clarissa, and there they were, making the ink run, I was hooked. Call me fetishistic if you like, but the pleasure of handling Richardson's own letters, Charlotte Bronte's miniature volumes of juvenelia, Charles Dickens' annotated proofs or Virginia Woolf's reading notebooks is extreme. And how often do we get the chance to hold something as old as a first edition of Clarissa, a time-capsule from 350 years ago?
Then there's the pleasure of learning new things, without which no day is complete. Curiosity too, about ideas and the insides of other people's minds, and the sense of seeing a pattern, a connection, an interpretation, that no-one has seen before. And of course, the pleasure of creating an object unlike anything else, in one's own way. Some people know exactly where they are going, from the very start. One of my colleagues has three folders on his shelf: "The Manuscript", written in a fine, clear, confident school-boy hand; "The Typescript", equally unblemished; and "The Proofs", again lightly amended. As for me, I assemble a great heap of material, then shuffle it about, make headings, stand back, and do it all again. Where he exquisitely discovers the sculpture in the marble, I work up shapes from the huge, inchoate heap of clay that I myself have made. The final pleasure is to heft that handsome, weighty thesis, yet another proof of the paradox that the black ink we place on white paper will outlive us, like all art.
But for whom do we write? For our mothers? No. Our family? Never. Our lovers? Good grief, no. For the world in general? But the world may not give a fig. We write first and foremost for ourselves alone, in the same gallant spirit as Lily Briscoe in Woolf's To the Lighthouse. She knows that her painting may never be hung, that it may be rolled up and pushed under the sofa in the maid's room, but she doesn't care, for she has had her vision. After years of planning and self-doubt, she balances the purple wedge against the umber and blue masses, inscribes that final unifying line after a process that enraptures, exhausts her, and carries her ecstatically away. She cannot be sure of immortality, but Virginia Woolf's novel, which describes her experience, has certainly endured.
We too must write, proudly, for ourselves alone. But that needn't mean feeling isolated, for we can set up imagined--and real--communities for ourselves. Is there someone out there in the department, the graduate group, at a conference, in cyberspace, who's longing to share enthusiasms and ideas? I well remember the joy of meeting the only other woman in the world who knew about Mary Astell, in 1971, in Atlanta. We talked all day and became fast friends, and we still talk about Mary Astell. Eventually, the more we communicate our ideas, the more we find our ideal readers, because by arousing their interest we have created them ourselves. And thus we enter into the international world of other scholars, who do care about our work and want to hear what we have to say. At that point our ideas take on an independent life; they are woven into the critical discourse, subtly changing it for ever. What began as a private pleasure becomes a public good and a contribution to knowledge. No-one said it would be easy, and inspiration may be fitful, but in the end, the pleasures outweigh--and outlive--the pains. Happy research!
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