The Monograph as Daisy?

A little while ago, I was about to go to sleep when a picture popped into my head, which I scribbled down like this:

I’ve tried thinking about the monograph as a machine with interlocking parts, or as a skyscraper, but I’m currently finding this floral metaphor quite useful. Chapter 1, which offers a narrative/ historiographical/ analytical overview of the early Reformation in Poland is the stalk, the basic root (of fact, evidence and context) which keeps the whole thing up (hopefully). The yellow centre is the core argument of the book, which will get its initial statement/airing in the Introduction. The petals fanning off are the individual chapters which all touch each other, but also point to and grow out from the central argument. Trying to decipher my late-night handwriting, I can see that I initially scrawled ‘windmill’ underneath the picture, which might be a slightly less twee formulation that ‘daisy’. I’ve found this a reassuring way of thinking about the monograph, because it makes the book look somehow solid, rational and an organic whole…. on my late-night note-paper at least.

Photo by I am His

Photo by chrisdonia