Dissertations / MA thesis... literary theory & criticism [5]

Thanks for your reply. I haven't been here for quite a while. Well, I have chosen three books for the analytic part of my paper and they are: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller (it's a class PA book, and a highly acclaimed one too), The Postman by David Brin (turned into a movie starring Kevin Costner) and The Road by Cormac McCarthy (won Pulizer Prize in 2007 if I'm not mistaken).

Anyway, I have almost completed the first chapter of my thesis and now I'd like to start chapter two, but here I've encountered some major obstacles. My thesis supervisor advised be to deal with the concept of 'sublime' and it's apocalyptic dimension. I've read some Longinus', Burke's and Kant's works on the subject of sublime and it doesn't help much, certainly it's not enough.

Here's the question that me and my supervisor have developed. The question embraces the whole work. "In what way the rhetoric of canonical works of post-apocalyptic fiction at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries reflects changes in poetic imagination in the context of apprehension of terminal end - against the background of pre-eminent philosophical and aesthetic ideas of the discussed period?"

To be honest it's a bit overwhelming... I don't think I'm capable of answering such a profound question (in such a short time that I've got left)

Any insights are more than welcome... Thanks!

PS. There're more things I'd like to discuss with you, and more questions to sub-chapters but I don't wanna sort of deluge you with them.

Dissertations / MA thesis... literary theory & criticism [5]

Thanks EF_Sean,

Well, to be perfectly honest, I've written 25 pages so far, my final deadline is in 6 days, I need around 15-25 pages more for the second chapter, which is the toughest part of my thesis. Then, chapter three will be around 15-25 as well, but since it's gonna be the analytic part I think I'll manage to deal with it. The problem is with the second chapter, I'm not sure how to connect the whole thing with sublime and rhetoric... of course Longinus' treatise is essential here, but I'm not that good at close reading and searching for some rhetorical structures...

Do you know where I could find out about the major philosophical and aesthetic ideas of the period of 1960-2006? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to refer all this to "poetic imagination" I was advised to read Gaston Bachelard's works, but some of them extremely hard to read and many times I found myself lost while reading them...

Best wishes!