An Act of Documentation

I started out by telling you the story yesterday. Now the set up for the work, a picture of my state of mind as I begin:

The book I am using is Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach, edited by Michael McKeon. I sent Fred Whiting the following message a couple of weeks ago. I include it here to give an idea about what I was thinking going into this project.

Thanks, Fred,

Whether it matters or not, I want to go ahead and write that paper. Now that's been decided, what do you need from me? How many pages should I be aiming for? What sort of proposal shall I make, etc.?

I plan to do some reading before I start to write, partly because my brain was mush while I was taking your class, and partly because it has been so long since I read much about Novel Theory. I still have the text, which was Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach, edited by Michael McKeon. I have two areas of interest at the moment and I realize I need to zero in on one of them.

1.  It makes sense because the book I'm working from operates from this historical approach, but I am interested in sociocultural changes, such as changes in the conventions of representation, that produced the novel form. I suspect that it happened at the same time that fine art was allowed to invade the domestic sphere. I was thinking about starting by reading the material from Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding and the selection from Nancy Armstrong's Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. That might be a little broad

2. My other interest is in novel rhetoric, i.e. modes of expression that are peculiar to the novel form. There seems to be a good bit of that in the anthology, and I find that I am particularly drawn to matters of rhetoric and hermeneutics in my regular reading.

Actually, I'll start by reading McKeon's introduction to the anthology.

Am I on the right track?

Thanks again,

Kelly

Fred responded with the requirements, saying that either of my stated areas of interest would be fine. He also warned me not to monumentalize this paper, to remember that it's only a seminar paper. I'll try to keep that in mind. I think that whether I ultimately use one of the ideas already mentioned won't matter, so long as they get me moving. Seems like, for me, movement is what's key right now. As I've told Michael, I think I will enjoy the process once I get in there and get started doing it, but there is a certain resistance within me as I contemplate what must be done. That is part of my problem, of course. I think too much. I waste far too much time worrying about the work instead of doing it.