I'd give our Julia Roberts an Oscar

Before Starting my Lit X

Despite their sometimes silly requests to quite down or to move tables, I hold a special place in my heart for the Staples Librarians. Since I finished my first Lit X book, I knew I needed to drag myself to the library to pick out another book to start. I thought about cheating the system a bit and picking out Frankenstein since it fits my theme of British female authors....and I maybe could have gotten away with it, but I couldn't do it. I've done enough research to name five or six authors I want to read for my topic, yet I knew I would come up with more names that might work better. Shocking AP confession...I thought Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley were different people. Oops, please forgive me Mary Shelley Wollstonecraft! Luckily, my lost soul was saved by Mrs. Roberts when she pointed me to an author database that searches by country and then narrows into gender. I struck gold with a complete list of notable British female authors. In less than one free period, I was able to make my official list of authors I wanted to read to my Lit X.

The Official Lit X Author List

Contemporary
JK Rowlings
Philippa Gregory
Agatha Christie
Elizabeth Bowen (short stories)

Non-Contemporary
Mary Shelley Wollstonecraft
Jane Austen
Jane Ward Lead (religious books)
Mary Russell Mitford (poetry and short-stories)


I think a mixture of famous novelists and less known authors that specialize in short stories and poetry will make for a solid mix of work from British female authors. Now my challenge becomes narrowing the focus of my Lit X paper. My guiding questions so far a pretty wide...they are "How do men and women differ through writing? Are men more violent than women? Are women more apt to write about love, loss and family? Can men write realistic female characters, can women write realistic male characters? Are female characters more matronly than male characters? Are male characters depicted as having as much emotion as female characters?". The best way to go about narrowing this down would be to write and see where my thoughts take me.

After Writing my Lit X

I decided to take my own advice, so I just sat and wrote from my notes I made in class and my notes made in the book I read. After three and a half pages, I think I made a valid point, but I realize I took too long to get there. Re-reading it, I noted that I tend to sway towards plot summery to justify my point since my book (The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory) isn't necessarily a well known title. My goal for my next draft is to narrow my plot summery to be more concise, but for the most part I think my conclusion, that contemporary authors unknowingly use contemporary thoughts within their characters thoughts, is true, at least of Philippa Gregory. We'll have to wait and see how the next draft goes! :)