The Senior Thesis

The first day of the fall semester is still two weeks away, but already the senior thesis has caused me a little misery. I thought I had a dandy field chosen last spring. I was going to read up on American detective novels of the 1920s and develop a really interesting argument about how the mystery and the private eye matured along with the post-war generation. You know, academic but accessible and maybe even innovative.

My initial research was fun. I learned that the mystery novel evolved over the course of the 19th century, starting with a French author, closely followed by Edgar Allen Poe. They were both inspired by a real life detective named Vidoq. Before the likes of Sam Spade hit the publishing world, the mystery novel evolved through the Victorian era, including a nasty mass of literature known as the sensation novel. In those, there was someone who was sort of like a detective, but the solution to the mystery usually included a ghost or other supernatural influence. And the hero who got the virginal girl in the final chapter was always someone other than the detective, since police officers were far too blue-collar to be heroes, according to the 19th century literati.

As I may have noted elsewhere on this blog, things change. On the advice of one of my advisers, I've discarded my former thesis area. All the books went back to the library, and I started ordering another pile of books on the Elizabethan era. The idea is to take advantage of the expertise of my thesis adviser, who is a renowned Elizabethan scholar, and my previous research and current studies of classical and medieval ethics.

So why am I telling you all this? As I was building the new wall of reference materials, I took a look around my own books, and was surprised just how much material I already had on hand. Besides the usual Complete Works of Shakespeare, I have an anthology of English literature from high school that holds a lot of Tudor poems, a lavishly illustrated Tudor history from last year's dramatic literature class, two Antonia Fraser histories of women's lives, a second-hand Latin phrase book that could come in handy . . . and more material on Elizabethan menus and cuisine than I care to think about. In other words, virtually every period of study in my life will be represented in the bibliography of this humongous paper, just as every era of study in my life is represented in my experience on the college campus.

My thesis adviser wants to see a thesis soon, he says. So do I: writing the argument statement has always been the weakest and most problematic part of writing a major paper. Although I may not know exactly what I'll be writing, it feels good to know that this capstone paper will represent such a large part of my life, as represented by all these books I've carried around for so long.