Aphra Behn Article in Print

Not sure how I missed posting about this, but on my return from Colorado I found waiting for me a few copies of The Explicator, a journal of short papers that explicate literary texts.  Opening one up (Volume 67, Number 3, pages 191-95, for those following at home) brought me to my latest published article: “Aphra Behn’s ‘The Disappointment’ as Ring Composition.”

Frankly, the article is not a game-changer.  Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is about 200 years out of my field of academic specialization, and I’d suspect that the points I make about the structure of her poem “The Disappointment” will be of interest to a fairly small audience even among scholars devoted to her work. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed reading the article in print. For one thing, once I publish something it doesn’t really feel like it’s mine anymore; I tend to read it just like I’m reading any other piece of criticism, so I can be alternatively annoyed or surprised by it.  More than that, though, I’m glad to see this one in print since, as I wrote last spring, it’s an interesting example of the germination process for some of my academic work.