< EL312: Project Literary Criticism: complete | Main | EL312: Lit to teach: blog carnival bungee jump >
April 29, 2007
EL312: My rear-kicking term paper idea
Pale Fire threatens to kick my rear (again) each time I pick it up--and now, worse yet, books about Pale Fire are ganging up on me, too! I've collected a variety of sources in hopes that I can synthesize a great deal of information to present with my own ideas.
I think I have my own ideas, anyway... I hope I'm not pushing around text on my computer screen and scribbling in my notebook for nothing.
After posting in desperation of some casual feedback and receiving none, I basically beat my head against the wall with my paper topic.
My idea is that in Pale Fire, Nabokov asserts an ideal reader for his text and that, since we all fall short of the ideal reader regardless of our educational background and experiences, he deserts the role of guiding readers through his text (inherently assigned to him as author of a text) by abandoning conventions associated with the novel.
While he doesn't abandon every last convention, he abuses some to the point that they are unrecognizable. Having created his own world in the novel, he also creates his own reality for the reader to interpret and investigate. At this point, reader response becomes of interest...
I'm working on a more complete outline of my paper so that I can continue writing without getting myself lost. I keep telling myself that I wrote 20 pages last semester for Chaucer, therefore I can do it in literary criticism... I just hope that my inner cheerleader doesn't get pummeled.
Posted by KarissaKilgore at April 29, 2007 10:37 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/mt/mt_tb-awoisdlkfj.cgi/9952
Comments
I keep thinking the same thing too! "I did a Chaucer paper, I did a Chaucer paper, I did a Chaucer paper..." Somehow, it can be less than comforting for this though.
Posted by: Nessa at April 29, 2007 9:01 PM
Karissa,
Are you trying to argue that Nabokov abandons the idea of an ideal reader within the text itsef, or does he abandon the idea at the outset?
Posted by: Dave Moio at April 30, 2007 7:25 AM
Dave, I'm trying to work with the idea that he abandons his role as an author from the outside view of the text... What do you think about it? I'm all ears.
Vanessa: hilarious. I know exactly what you mean. I'm trying to remember how I organized everything... I also write a 15 or 16 pager for my independent study, but organizing that was much easier for some reason.
Posted by: Karissa at April 30, 2007 7:54 AM
Yours is definitely an original slant. I think many feel like I do, and that is that Nabokov actually buries himself within the dual authorship of the novel instead of abandononing from the outside. I like the idea, but I think you may run into the same difficulty I am having, and that is with finding strong opposition to a largely unexplored topic. I have taken a bit of a different approach to my review of literature as I am focusing my energy on showing how the scholarship on PF has largely either assumed or ignored the point I am trying to make.
I do like the originality of your idea.
Posted by: Dave Moio at April 30, 2007 2:06 PM
Awesome, Dave! Your idea sounds like it'll really fly!
And yes, I'm finding that there's some opposition... folks who say it's okay for him to do what he does because (after all) he is the author... I hope I'm not in over my head with trying to prove this, though. The idea is there, the evidence seems at my fingertips (in large heaps of books and articles), but I'm concerned that I'm making this harder than it is... Or maybe I'm just seeing precisely how difficult it truly is??
Sheesh, I don't know anymore :-0
Posted by: Karissa at April 30, 2007 4:32 PM
God Bless You Karissa. I could barely write three pages on Pale Fire. You are simply a champ.
Posted by: Jason Pugh at May 1, 2007 11:49 PM
HAHA! Thank you, Jay :) I feel like I should print this and hang it on my wall to encourage me while I write!
Posted by: Karissa at May 2, 2007 8:12 AM