Playing detective

There's a chill in the air. The crush of tourists has eased, and there is the faintest tint of red at the tips of the tree branches. Which means: it's time to apply for jobs! Just over a week ago, the MLA posted its annual jobs list, so I now have a meagre list of potential academic positions for which to apply.

The Tennyson monument outside Lincoln Cathedral

Having recently read up on how to make myself an attractive candidate, I'm more aware than ever that I need to get some publications out the door. The one that is closest to done has involved a lot of detective work, which has been surprisingly rewarding -- except when I think that I'm probably chasing a flee on a mouse in the corner of a palace and probably no one will care about the minutiae I am carefully footnoting.

Essentially, I transcribed a portion of one of Tennyson's notebooks, and I've been tracking down the books from which he pulled vocabulary, definitions, and short quotations. Step one -- which I did as part of my dissertation -- was to figure out what his abbreviations stood for. So, G.G.N. = a Renaissance play called Gammer Gurton's Needle. Step 2: from which edition of what book did Tennyson read each of these things? This has involved looking up publication histories and checking what books the poet or his father owned. I also finally -- after five years! -- made the trip to the Tennyson Research Centre, where the lovely librarian set me up to look through potential sources.

All this has been absolutely reliant on Google Books, which has proven invaluable. Sometimes the tiniest thing will put me onto the right track. Which dictionary did he use for the definition and examples of "lettan"? There are three possibilities with almost identical wording. But Tennyson spelled a particular Old English quotation using eth (ð), and two of the three dictionaries spelled the same quotation using thorn (þ). So, thanks to some squinting at the tiny text shown here, I had my answer. Whew!

There's no doubt that this is new information. Will anyone care? Well, that's for the journal to decide. My goal is to send the article on its merry way by the end of the month -- and then on to the next thing.