Life Writing and Domestic Papers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret J. M. Ezell
Keyword(s):  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
John Evelyn ◽  
Life Writings

Perhaps because of the turbulent and unsettled times, many men and women recorded their experiences in forms of life writing, including memoirs, diaries, autobiographies and biographies, meditations, and narratives of events. Among the most prolific publishers of life writings were the early Quakers, who published their accounts to offer comfort to others. Other texts such as those by John Evelyn, Margaret Cavendish, and Robert Boyle recorded events and impressions, as well as creating personal narratives.

scholarly journals 'Subjecive Cameras': Authorship, Form, and Interpretation of Mass Observation Life Writings

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. MO16-MO44
Author(s):  
T.G. Ashplant
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Self Perceptions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Rich Material ◽  
Life Writings

The Mass Observation Archive contains a wealth of different forms of life writing created between 1937 and the mid-1950s, and again from 1981 to the present. This life writing, by contributors with differing intentions and levels of commitment, is fragmentary, dispersed across the archive, and takes varied forms. To make full use of the richness of this writing, it is necessary to know who the authors were, how their texts were generated, what forms of life writing resulted, and how they may be interpreted. This contextualising overview first outlines the specific and distinctive forms of life writing which MO initiated and encouraged; the social profile of their authors, and their self-perceptions of their identities; the writers' motivations; and their relationship to the Archive. It then explores some of the ways in which scholars have used and interpreted this rich material, both as a resource for investigating specific topics, and as a collection of life writings open to comparative analysis as narratives of self-construction and records of biographical trajectories.

scholarly journals Mass Observation (1937-2017) and Life Writing: an Introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. MO1-MO15
Author(s):  
T.G. Ashplant
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Research Project ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Innovative Research ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The University ◽  
Life Writings

Mass Observation (MO) was formed in Britain in 1937 as an innovative research project, to develop new methods for accurately gauging public opinion, thereby contributing to a more democratic form of politics and public policy formation. The archive of its first phase (1937-49) was transferred to the University of Sussex in 1970. In 1981 it was revived as the Mass Observation Project (MOP), which continues to the present. The documentation which MO and MOP together generated includes a significant body of life writings. The purpose of this cluster of articles is to introduce the ways in which the interaction between the aims and approaches of MO's founders and its later MOP refounders, and the responses of its contributors, produced specific forms of life writing; and to explore aspects of the 'afterlife' of these texts – their contextualisation, publication, and interpretation. This introduction situates the original, multifaceted and idiosyncratic, MO project within wider political and cultural trends of the 1930s, and then examines MO's methods, which aimed at 'the observation by everyone of everyone, including themselves'.

Writing History: Domestic Papers, Biographical Writing, and Public Histories

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret J. M. Ezell
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Family Member ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
Lucy Hutchinson ◽  
History Of ◽  
Life Writings

Many who lived through the English Civil War penned memoirs of their experiences, some of which were published after their deaths, such as Richard Baxter’s life writings and Thomas Fuller’s accounts of the worthies of England, or wrote and published topical public histories, including John Milton’s history of Britain. Samuel Pepys’s and John Evelyn’s diaries are among the most important sources about the Restoration years. Others such as Lucy Hutchinson wrote memoirs for their family or, like Margaret Cavendish, to defend the reputation of a family member. There was also interest in the history of foreign cultures, past rulers, and antiquarian topics.

Early British Reactions to Absolutism: 1664 to 1687

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Ralph Cudworth

This chapter considers early British reactions to absolutism between the start of Barrow’s pertinent lectures in 1664, and the publication of Newton’s Principia in 1687. Although the amount of discussion absolutism received in Britain during this period was much less than it would receive later, it was already capturing the attention of some important thinkers. The reactions to absolutism were mixed. Different kinds of absolutism about space or time was adopted by thinkers such as Samuel Parker, Robert Boyle, and John Turner. In contrast, absolutism was rejected by philosophers such as Margaret Cavendish, Ralph Cudworth, Nathaniel Fairfax, and Anne Conway.

scholarly journals An accompt of some books. - I. Certain philosophical essayes, and other tracts, by the Honorable Robert Boyle, fellow of the R. Society. The second edition, enlarged. London; printed for Henry Herringman in the new-exchange. A. 1669. - II. Del movimento dellacometa, apparsa ilmese di Dicembre 1664. da Pietro Maria Mutoli, in Pisa, in 4°. - III. Erasmi Bartholoni de Cometis an. 1664. & 1665. Opusculum; ex observationibus Hasniæ habitis adornatum. Hasniæ in 4°. - IV. Sylva & pomona, by John Evelyn Esq

1669 ◽  
Vol 4 (53) ◽  
pp. 1069-1074 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Internal Motions ◽  
John Evelyn

An accompt of some books. - I. Certain philosophical essayes, and other tracts, by the Honorable Robert Boyle, fellow of the R. Society. The second edition, enlarged. London; printed for Henry Herringman in the new-exchange. A. 1669. - II. Del movimento dellacometa, apparsa ilmese di Dicembre 1664. da Pietro Maria Mutoli, in Pisa, in 4°. - III. Erasmi Bartholoni de cometis an. 1664. & 1665. opusculum; ex observationibus Hasniæ habitis adornatum. Hasniæ in 4°. - IV. Sylva & pomona, by John Evelyn Esq. Fellow of the R. Society. Reprinted by John Martin and James Allestry in fol. London. We could not but give the Curious Reader notice of this reprinted and in divers places considerably enriched Book; but chiefly increased by the Addition of a very Philosophical Discourse about the Absolute Rest in Bodies , wherein the Noble Author, with his usual modesty as well as acuteness, delivers his Thoughts concerning the Intestin Motions of the particles of Quiescent Solids , and in doing so calls the Absolute Rest of Bodies in Question, by undertaking to prove, That some of those Bodies, which we think have their parts most at Rest, are not exempted from having internal Motions in them; to which proof he Judgeth 'twill be consequent, that it must be probable, that in other Bodies, whose Solidity is confessed inferiour, the component Particles are not in a State of Perfect Rest.

“Sweet Home”: Audre Lorde's Zami and the legacies of American Writing

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
MONICA B. PEARL
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Slave Narrative ◽  
Audre Lorde ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
American Life ◽  
Forms Of Life

Although Audre Lorde calls the narrative of her life Zami: A New Spelling of My Name a “biomythography,” suggesting that the life of an African American lesbian cannot be told in any previously available generic forms of life-writing or self-expression, Zami actually derives from two extant American literary traditions – the African American slave narrative and the lesbian coming out story – rendering it, after all, not a marginal text, but rather a text that falls obviously and firmly in a tradition of American literature. Both traditions turn siginificantly on the trope of “home,” of finding a home where one belongs. In finding the “home” that she is seeking not, ultimately, geographically, but, rather, generically – in the very text she is writing – Lorde's life story also ends up signifying the similarity of these two ostensibly disparate forms: the slave narrative and the coming out story, suggesting a common narrative trajectory of marginal American identities in the tradition of American life-writing.

scholarly journals Transformation From Aesthetics to Activism: An Analysis of Select Dalit Women Personal Narratives

2021 ◽  
pp. 2455328X2110389
Author(s):  
Surya Simon
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Narrative Technique ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dalit Women

Dalit resistance gained prominence in postcolonial India through Dalit literature, with Dalit life writing emerging as a significant way to address ongoing problems and issues faced by Dalit communities. Dalit personal narratives are not mere reflections into the past but lived experiences with a timely and current sociological base. Dalit narratives have become a platform for social and political activism against various hegemonic discourses that otherwise exclude the experiences of the Dalit population. Moreover, Dalit women suffer many layers of oppression and violence, and there is a necessity to understand the intersectionality of Dalit women’s realities. Hence this article analyses select personal narratives of two Dalit women writers: P. Sivakami’s The Grip of Change ([1989] 2006) and ₹Author’s Notes: Gowri’ ([1999] 2006); and Bama’s Karukku ([1992] 2005). The ₹Author’s Notes: Gowri’ is a reflection on The Grip of Change and the two narratives are collectively referred to as The Grip of Change. This article attempts to understand the extent to which Dalit personal narratives transform from aesthetics to activism. This article analyses the narrative technique and form used in the narratives and explores how the narratives expose embodied issues to foster activism in and through the content.

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