Autobiography: Spiritual Narrative, Secondary Sources

As I was searching for my secondary sources, I had a bit of a difficult time defining what exactly I was looking for. Many of the sources I found offered criticism of specific spiritual autobiographies, which I initially assumed would be unhelpful since I had not read the pieces the authors were referring to. However, as my research progressed, I decided to explore some of these specific types of criticism to see if they could offer anything helpful. To my surprise, it was still advantageous to read secondary sources that referred to texts I had not read, because by doing so, I was able to develop a feel for how scholars tend to talk about this genre. Although these types of sources did not offer me much concrete information, they helped me take note of what sorts of patterns and themes tend to emerge in discussions of spiritual autobiography, and they helped me compare and contrast the various angles scholars take when discussing works in that genre.


While a general exploration of scholarly criticism was helpful in getting me started and enabling me to establish the framework of the genre, it was especially helpful to find sources that were devoted to explaining broader theories of analysis in respect to spiritual autobiographies. For example, The Radicalism of Early Modern Spiritual Autobiography by Adam Smyth took a historical approach to exploring the spiritual autobiography genre, and it was intriguing to see how the genre has evolved over time. Most of the other sources I read were focused on analyzing spiritual autobiographies using solely the historical context from which they were written. While it is certainly helpful to have knowledge of the historical context that is particularly relevant to the text in question, it is also helpful to be able to place that text in a broader historical timeline to consider what types of works may have preceded or succeeded it. Smyth's piece also encouraged me to consider how the genre of spiritual autobiography will continue to change in the future, and I am curious about how our society's evolving experiences with spirituality will shape the course of the genre. This notion of future change is one that I would like to consider as I proceed further with my research, and I hope to keep this question in the back of my mind especially as I encounter more primary sources. 

As my research progresses, I think it would be advantageous for me to diversify my databases a bit in order to extend the breadth of my research. I became a bit frustrated with using the two databases we learned about during our library session (MLA and OED) as they did not yield the types of sources I was looking for. Many of the sources I found through these databases were not available through the Santa Clara library, and others were merely short book reviews that offered little insight on the genre as a whole. Additionally, many of the useful items that I found were long books or articles, which made it quite cumbersome to parse through the long texts in order to find relevant information. Given these challenges, I found most of my sources using Gale, which is one of my favorite databases. However, I know as I move into researching more in the future, I should perhaps try not to rely too much on one single database and should have some more patience as I try to explore new options.