Literary Revisions: Analysis and Art

Author

Jillian Hanley

Date of Award

2012

First Advisor

Rebecca Fiske

Second Advisor

Brendan Mathews

Abstract

This thesis is an exercise in rewriting and rethinking through both analyzing and writing literature. The intention is to revisit work and thoughts in order to change them and make them new, to insist on an open and imaginative way of viewing literature’s critique and creation. The first half of the thesis is designated for literary analysis and the second half of the thesis is designated for creative writing. The literary analysis portion examines the novel The End of the Story by Lydia Davis, arriving at three different interpretations, the first of which utilizes Freudian psychoanalytic theory and the latter two whose only source is the text itself. The creative writing portion consists of three stories, the second and third of which are radical revisions of the first, intended to be unrecognizable from the original. The aim of the thesis is to become more aware of all the choices the critic and writer makes when facing literature, to become more aware of the ways in which one novel can be viewed from contradictory viewpoints and the ways in which one story could, with a few changes, easily be a completely different story.

Recommended Citation

Hanley, Jillian, "Literary Revisions: Analysis and Art" (2012). Senior Theses. 662.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/sr-theses/662