Thesisish

[icepixie]

I'm twenty pages from being done with my reread of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I think I'm going to be writing my master's thesis on that (since grad school is pretty much a given at this point). I'm really interested in combining my dual loves of literature and history by studying the ways authors use history in their fiction--for what purposes they manipulate it, if they do, and what they may be trying to say about their own period by setting something in or referring to historical periods. I also want to work on sci-fi and fantasy (no, seriously, in my current state of late-night megalomania I'm envisioning writing many books of criticism, or at least essays, on Gaiman, Martin, Bradbury, Clarke...), and JS&MN is a perfect blend of the two.

I may babble about the book, and other works of historical fiction, in the months to come. Be prepared.

(Okay, so maybe I was meant to be an academic. I'm excited at the prospect of researching and writing a paper. Perhaps last year's "Papers, augh!" was the burnout talking?)

Comments

[nickless.livejournal.com]

studying the ways authors use history in their fiction

Could you work sci-fi/fantasy into that, as well? As in, what are they trying to say/what can we learn about the author's own period by setting something in the future/alternative world, especially in the case of books written in the past (ie, Jules Verne)? Or is that not the angle you're interested in on the sci-fi/fantasy side of things?

And most importantly, how dizzy did that paragraph just make you? 'cause I'm not even sure I understood it... ;)

[icepixie]

Could you work sci-fi/fantasy into that, as well? As in, what are they trying to say/what can we learn about the author's own period by setting something in the future/alternative world, especially in the case of books written in the past (ie, Jules Verne)?

Actually, yes. That would be an awesome contrast to works set in historical periods. I could do a bunch of compare/contrast-type papers with that premise!

Or is that not the angle you're interested in on the sci-fi/fantasy side of things?

It's definitely one of the angles I'm interested in (to be honest, it's probably the only angle that would make study of SF acceptable to the academic community--what we can learn about the author's world, what the author was trying to say about his/her world). But I'm interested in doing the same kind of work people do on other twentieth-century lit, just on sci-fi and fantasy novels, whcih have been woefully neglected. (Okay. Some of them suck. A great majority of them suck. But so does most modern lit, I think...)

And most importantly, how dizzy did that paragraph just make you? 'cause I'm not even sure I understood it... ;)

Heh. I want to write a big paper on Stoppard's Arcadia. Try reading that without becoming dizzy.