An Annotated Bibliography: Preparation

 

 

 

What Is an Annotated Bibliography (AB) and How Does it Differ from a Works Cited or Standard Bibliography? An Annotated Bibliography is not just a listing of works in Modern Language Association (MLA) or American Psychological Association (APA) format.  The Annotated Bibliography includes comments on how you may use particular research items to contribute to your paper.  Check with your teacher to see if your AB may include works that you found disappointing, perhaps out of date or biased.  However, be sure to give each work a fair evaluation.  Some older works may contribute a perspective that is now lost, such as the horror of an avalanche or reactions (pro or con) invoked by a controversial individual or issue.

 

What’s the Objective? What Will Learning to Create an AB Do for Me?  You will learn how to evaluate and utilize your research sources and to create a better paper as a result.  You will improve your ability to read for meaning.   You will gain an overview of the range of information and viewpoints affecting a particular subject.

 

What Should It Look Like?  Can You Give an Example?

 

Although the following example employs sentence comments, you and/or your teacher may prefer phrases. For example: “Most complete chronology of any Milton biography.”

 

Contemporary Influences upon John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Later Works

Annotated Bibliography

 

Cary, John Ed. Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton. London: Longman, 1971. This work contains references to Milton’s initial reasons for writing Paradise Regained.  Other works bring out the same material, but this additional evidence could be used to help support my thesis.

 

Darbishire, Helen, Ed.  The Early Lives of Milton. 1932. NY: Barnes and Noble, 1965.  This work contains references to Milton’s writing of Paradise Regained in response to negative reactions to Paradise Lost. This work contains a specific quote from Milton’s nephew that does not appear in Parker’s autobiography.

 

Ferry, Anne Davidson. Milton and the Miltonic Dryden. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1968.  This work contains background information and quotations from Dryden in which he praises Milton’s poetic skills but predates William Blake in questioning whether Satan not Adam is the real hero of Paradise Lost.

 

Hill, Christopher. The Century of Revolution: 1603-1714. NY: Norton, 1980.  This work contains background information on the Interregnum and the failure of Cromwell’s Commonwealth, for which Milton had written a justification of the overthrow of Charles I.

 

--- The Experience of Defeat: Milton and Some Contemporaries.  NY: Viking, 1984.  Here, Hill speculates on Milton’s state of mind when he abandoned his original plan to write an epic of Arthurian England and instead wrote Paradise Lostas an attempt to accept the defeat as part of God’s plan.

 

Knight, Stephen. “ ‘Quite Another Man’: The Restoration Robin Hood.” Playing Robin Hood: The Legend as Performance in Five Centuries. Ed. Lois Potter, Newark: U of Delaware Presses, 1998. This unusual work shows the caution of some writers after 1760. The Restoration Robin Hood is depicted as gentle, kindly, and loyal to Charles II. Knight’s book helps to position Milton’s anxiety following the restoration to the British throne of the son of the king whose execution Milton had supported.

 

Miller, Timothy C. Ed. The Critical Response to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Westport, CN: Greenwood, 1997.  This writer has gathered critical reactions to Paradise Lost, finding widespread clerical objection to the Classical allusions within Paradise Lost.  He also finds instances of other poets objecting to the epic style and elevated language.  However, he indicates that by the late 1790s, several years after Milton’s death, Paradise Lost was generally acclaimed a classic.  This work represents a useful collection of reactions to Paradise Lost.

 

Milton, John. Selected Works. Paradise Lost. 1667.  355-618.  Paradise Regained. 1671. 619- 69.  Samson Agonistes. 1671. 671-715.  In The Oxford Authors: John Milton. Ed. Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.  While Paradise Lost will be the main subject of this paper, Paradise Regained shows Milton’s attempt to pacify both those who objected to Classical allusions and those who wanted a “paradise found.” By contrast, Samson Agonistes appears to have been written last as Milton’s justification of his own life and his support of what had seemed God’s plan for the Interregnum.  So, all three works are essential to this paper.

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Parker, William Riley. Milton: A Biography.  Vol. I. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968. Parker’s biography includes both the seventeenth-century request for a “paradise found” rather than a “paradise lost” and the comment by Milton’s nephew that the author seemed initially pleased with Paradise Regained. These comments help to support the widespread view that Milton wrote Paradise Regained before Samson Agonistes, although both works were published in the same year.

 

Rajan, B. Paradise Lost and The Seventeenth Century Reader. 1947. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1967.  Although this work is about 40 years old, it is eloquently written and frequently cited among Milton scholars for its evocation of John Milton as the last Renaissance man able to articulate all fields of knowledge (science, history, religion, politics) in poetry. Rajan conveys the respect that Milton’s intellect evoked from his contemporaries.

 

Warton, Joseph.  An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope. Vol. I. 1782. NY: Garland, 1970.  Warton, an eighteenth century literary critic, comments that the Restoration emphasis upon light drama and comedy placed serious religious works out of fashion (names Paradise Lost specifically). This may help to explain some of the criticisms of the work during Milton’s lifetime.

 

An Annotated Bibliography evaluates your collected research based upon what each work can contribute to your paper.  The preparation process helps you to recognize what you want to accomplish and to write a well-supported paper.

 

Where Can I Learn More About Annotated Bibliographies?

 

§        The Chicago Manual of Style, 14^th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

• Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 5^th ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 1999.
• Harner, James L. On Compiling an Annotated Bibliography, 2d. ed.. New York: MLA, 2000. (Also discusses professional  annotated bibliography, usually published to help other researchers find sources on a particular subject or person.)
• http://webster.commnet.edu/mla/annotated.shtml

 

© Copyright Joyce D. Brotton 2002

jbrotton@nvcc.edu