Other suggested authors

My sortadviser recommended Smollett and Manly in lieu of Austen. I have read Humphry Clinker, but not a few of his others (Roderick Random, Peregrin Pickle). I've never read Manly. I've heard she's quite a kick in the pants...

I suppose that the time is right to get back into the 18C soon. I just need to finish up these minor courses...And they are slowly eating at my soul. It's not that I don't enjoy their subject matter -- I just don't enjoy them now.


More to come when the semester finally ends. My last semester of graduate-level courses.... Woo!

My primary texts (so far)

Here are the texts I am considering for my dissertation:

• Martinus Scriblerus
• Tale of a Tub
• The Female Quixote
• Northanger Abbey

I also considered Tristram Shandy and The Man of Feeling, but those two are a bit problematic when it comes to defining them as satires. They also happen to be the craziest reader-oriented texts I can think of. Oh well.

I'm sure that many, many more minor texts will be addressed along the way, but these texts will spearhead my chapters. I think that Northanger or Tale of a Tub will be my job talk chapters... More than likely Tale of a Tub... How many times do I need to present on Northanger to call it "all good"? Seriously. I think I've presented on NA about 3 times already.

Is Tale of a Tub well-known for people outside of the 18C? Maybe I should ask for your opinions. Have any of you ever heard of Jonathan Swift's Tale of a Tub? If you're in this MA program, you had to read for your masters exam... Anyone else?

The real adviser responds

This week has been revelatory for me. I received immediate responses from my director/adviser which were both positive and critical. My adviser has the strongest moral character I've ever encountered in a person. It's as though he is the reincarnation of Johnson, dare I say it...

I need to sit down at this point to reread all of my primary texts. I think that I can do a great deal of this work during the winter break. Or at least after I complete the papers for my minor courses. I also need to accumulate secondary and critical material for my project. In the end, I think I may have 4 stacks of texts to read: primary/18C sources, sources on reading theory, sources on satire, and sources on the practice of reception theory.

According to my adviser, I still need to hone in and "conceptualize" my project. I'm just grateful that my project has a slight thumbs up instead of an outright thumbs down. Yay!

Well, well, well

So, I just submitted 3 double spaced pages to my sortadvisor. I call this person my sortadvisor because this person isn't exactly my advisor but is doing the job of one anyway.

At any rate, I don't think I'm quite ready to develop my prospectus yet... I still have a lot of reading to do, and I don't have much time to do it in this semester. Sure, I'm currently goofing off, relaxing at home, instead of working myself silly. But, after what happened to me last week, I don't think I can handle being stressed 100% of the time. It sucks.

My current interests are studying the figure of the reader and the practices of rereading in eighteenth-century satire. I've come to the conclusion that I actually enjoy reading satire. I love it. I thought I loved the novel more, but I don't. Satire is just so much more interesting. Who knew? I didn't realize my love for satire until after my prelims. I guess I just learned what prelims are truly good for...