Lately, I’ve been mostly focused working on client editing or on various writing projects either for a client, or my novel Godiva (which you can read in-progress if you become a patron of me on Patreon). It’s been a few years since I last was motivated to tackle some literary scholarship. I do enjoy literary analysis, but my daily activity with written materials doesn’t depend on doing such analysis a lot. But every so often a stray thought or a discussion with friends will spark an idea.
That’s what happened recently. My friend Janet Brennan Croft posted a question on Facebook about Grail lore in the Arthurian stories. As the discussion progressed, it turned out that she was particularly interested in the questions asked of the questing knight when he encounters the Fisher King. As comments were made, I realized there wasn’t a whole lot written about that specific aspect – at least not that I could recall.
But it also became evident in the discussion that there are variations on what the questor gets asked. My interest was piqued! Oooo! A topic to look into, either for a blog post or possibly even a paper. Janet’s interest was in relation to a specific story. My interest is in the motif of “Questions” itself. They obviously are part of testing the worthiness of the Hero, but given variations in questions, I started thinking they are even more significant in describing the meaning of the quest and its object.
So I scribbled down a note for myself, for “future research.” But sometimes, ideas just take on a life of their own. And for me, this one is rather pushy. It’s no good for me to tell it, “Get in line, I’ve got three other projects on the stove right now.” I think it’s going to push itself forward, so I’m going to have to work on it sooner than I expected.
What amuses me about it all, is that I’ll actually have to use libraries. So many of my things are still in storage, I don’t have easy access to the scholarly works I’ll need to read. I’ll have to get a local library card, at the very least (as well as probably seeing if I can use the UNLV library).
I suppose for many people, the idea that one could be excited about doing some literary scholarship is very odd. But I love analyzing things, and especially the shapes of stories. It’s like venturing into a new territory when you are out hiking. You’re not sure what you will find around the next bend, what wonders will be shown to you. It is adventuring in the mind – at least for me.
