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clo_againI need to settle on a fourth book for my dissertation -- now finally titled Patterns of a Genre: Conventions in Fantasy Throughout History -- around the Middle-Ageish sort of period and I'm torn between Chretien de Troyes's King Arthur stories, mainly the Grail quest one -- which I haven't read yet, dissertation, yeah, not like it's important that I *know* what I'm doing or anything ;) -- or Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan which has a dragon and a love potion and mistaken identity and lots of fun fantasy stereotypes but then, *King Arthur*. Ultimate in cool.
Or I could ignore all that and do Beowulf. Which I also haven't read and is a little earlier than what I was thinking but then, my first book is The Odyssey and that's like what, 800 B.C., and then Tolkien and Gaiman which are pathetically close together in comparison so it's not as if I can use time spans as any criteria for choosing.
It would help if I had actually read any of these books when making this decision. Probably why I should've been thinking about this more than two days before the proposal has to be written but eh. Oh and I'm still vacillating between Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as my third book. Though I'm almost definitely thinking Hobbit. Almost definitely. Probably anyway. Actually the Wikipedia Hobbit article has a section on 'similarities with Beowulf' and oh look, I think that just made my decision for me.
...
I still kind of wanted to do King Arthur. Dammit.
edit: Yeah, I'm pretty much going with Beowulf.
Oh well Hamster. You tried to convert me with your shiny Grail program and failed. Don't feel bad.
Or I could ignore all that and do Beowulf. Which I also haven't read and is a little earlier than what I was thinking but then, my first book is The Odyssey and that's like what, 800 B.C., and then Tolkien and Gaiman which are pathetically close together in comparison so it's not as if I can use time spans as any criteria for choosing.
It would help if I had actually read any of these books when making this decision. Probably why I should've been thinking about this more than two days before the proposal has to be written but eh. Oh and I'm still vacillating between Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as my third book. Though I'm almost definitely thinking Hobbit. Almost definitely. Probably anyway. Actually the Wikipedia Hobbit article has a section on 'similarities with Beowulf' and oh look, I think that just made my decision for me.
...
I still kind of wanted to do King Arthur. Dammit.
edit: Yeah, I'm pretty much going with Beowulf.
Oh well Hamster. You tried to convert me with your shiny Grail program and failed. Don't feel bad.
