Instant Publication

COMMENTARY INSTANT PUBLICATION W. R. Thompson W. R. Thompson (B.A., M.A., Texas Christian University; Ph.D., Texas Technological College) is chairman of the Division of Language, Literature and Speech at Fort Hays Kansas State College. He has taught at the University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Wesleyan College, and the University of Alaska, where he also directed the first VISTA training program. He has published articles on Hawthorne in Modern Language Notes, Publications of the Modern Language Association, and the SCMLA Bulletin. A quarter of a century has passed since R. B. McKerrow's "Form and Matter in the Publication of Research"1 first impressed itself on the minds and subsequent articles of aspiring young literary scholars. Today one rarely comes across a published study not bearing the imprint of McKerrow 's formula for successful writing. It occurs to me, however, that an addendum dealing with the one facet of scholarly production not touched upon by McKerrow is overdue. I refer, of course, to selection of subject. One must, after all, have something (1) to introduce, (2) to propose, (3) to boost, (4) to demonstrate, and (5) to crow about.2 First, then, in the quest for "instant publication" is the matter of choosing an author with whom to work. Because of editorial reverence for the past, one must eschew one's possible preference for the contemporary. Involvement with someone the caliber of Shakespeare, however, is equally to be avoided; the ten-year period required to familiarize oneself with what has already been written on the bard tends to make old neophytes out of young ones. Obviously required at this point is a happy medium—i.e., a period not too remote, an author not yet overexplicated. For purposes of demonstration I have selected Nathaniel Hawthorne as author. True, much has been written about works on the order of The Scarlet Letter. Practically nothing, however, has been conjectured with regard to "Peter Goldfhwaite's Treasure,"3 a tale remarkable for the length to which the author goes to say very little. The man and his work having been selected, there remains only to determine the motif. Investigation of current critical practice reveals that much of Hawthorne's present popularity stems from the ability of critics to make their subject grind almost any axe they feel needs grinding. "Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure," for example, can easily be made to accommodate 1R. B. McKerrow, "Form and Matter in the Publication of Research," PMLA, LXV (1950), 3-8, reprinted from RES, XVI (1940), 116-121. 2IbId., p. 5. 3Citations from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure in my text are to The Complete Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne (New York, 1959), pp. 188201 . 160RMMLA BulletinDecember 1969 any of the following stock motifs: (1) the fortunate fall; (2) the problem of the artist enmeshed in a hostile environment; (3) illusion and reality; (4) withdrawal and return; (5) the ambiguity of being; (6) materialism. But to make use of such tired paraphernalia betrays paucity of imagination, and the reader is here cautioned that the quality most sought by editors is ingenuity of approach. Ingenuity of approach is exemplified in a recent study* professing to reveal a concealed connection between the stated dimensions of King Solomon 's temple5 and the probable measurements of Hawthorne's more torrid heroines (Zenobia of The Blithedale Romance, to name but one). The method employed borders on the statistical. Three key dimensions of the temple are reduced from cubits to inches, divided by 150, then multiplied by three. The result is a surprising 36" — 24" — 36". If Hawthorne's composite heroine emerges as something less than Sophia Loren, she is still by contemporary standards a vast improvement over the Hilda of The Marble Faun. Incidentally, and as one might suspect, the author of the article under consideration is more Freudian than statistician. His numerological essay eventuates in the thesis that D. H. Lawrence's "shy, blue-eyed Nathanier6 sought release from the reality of spinster-like Sophia Hawthorne by gamboling (in a literary way) with Solomon's 300 concubines and 700 wives. This Pecksniff proves ingeniously by relating the first digit in the number 300 to the day...