please suggest a topic for literature review.

[zahra kazmi]

Assalam o alikum all, hope every one here is fine,

I have got an assignment of almost 20 pages in which I am supposed to write a literature review on any topic.Fact of the mater is that I am good at self-writing but selecting a topic for my literature review seems a big challenge and problem is that I don't have enough time because of mid terms and assignments....

Please help me so that I can choose a topic  

[Haji 2003]

You are going to have to give a little more guidance, very roughly what discipline area? And what level, pre-university or undergrad?

[zahra kazmi]

46 minutes ago, Haji 2003 said:

You are going to have to give a little more guidance, very roughly what discipline area? And what level, pre-university or undergrad?

Masters in English language and literature.........any topic whether it belongs to novel or drama or any genre of literature 

[Haji 2003]

@Marbles would be the person to ask. This message should alert him. In my list I deliberately did not mention postgrad, because I thought at that level you may have some idea...???

It would pay to focus on a genre/period/theme where you have a personal interest, some prior knowledge, IMHO.

Surely you can't be indifferent?

[zahra kazmi]

7 minutes ago, Haji 2003 said:

@Marbles would be the person to ask. This message should alert him. In my list I deliberately did not mention postgrad, because I thought at that level you may have some idea...???

It would pay to focus on a genre/period/theme where you have a personal interest, some prior knowledge, IMHO.

Surely you can't be indifferent?

Thank you, I have a lot of work to do in these days, that's why I thought to ask for an idea...discussion always gives more worthy ideas

[Haji 2003]

Given the impact of time constraints, I'd say prior knowledge is a big factor. So even though I know nothing about this field, I would guess you should:

1. make a list of books/genres etc. that you are familiar with

2. then identify/list what 'issues' are associated with these

3. focus on those in (2) which resonate the most with you and for which there appears to be a reasonable balance between existing literary criticism (so you have something to go on) and the field having been exhausted (more difficult for you to find something new to say).

Oh and if it is possible take a look at what has been done previously in your institution, not to plagiarise, but to see what the required standard/style is like.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Haji 2003

[Marbles]

It's a vast field with many possibilities so knowing your preference will make it easier to suggest something concrete. Which books/eras/topics have you studied in your course and what's your forte? 

It seems you're required to write a general overview instead of the more focused theme-based one. If my impression is correct, you may consider any one of topics mentioned below.

For a general overview it is best to stick to topics about which a good deal has been already written, which means you'll have good sources at your disposal. For newer topics/books (eg migrant literature from ethnic writers) you'll need some measure of original research which might be difficult given the time constraints.

For each topic select at maximum four or five representative works and link them together with themes, motifs, tropes, style and language etc. Obviously you are not going to read those books at this time if you haven't already. There's a way out of: Visit Goodreads.com, search the book, and go through top reader's reviews. The quality of reviews there is very good even though they're written general readers. Reading a handful will give you a good idea about each book. But you will also need to properly reference your work for which you'll need to rely on your reference books and any further reading suggestions found in there.

1. Salient features of Modernist literature (which developed at the start of 20th century when new writers gave up literary realism to experiment in new modes of expression)

Books:

To The Lighthouse & Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (stream of consciousness novels)
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (novella, merging of reality and dream)
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (play, stylistic minimalism)
The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot (poetry)
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (experimental novel)
No discussion of literary modernism is complete without James Joyce. I haven't read Ulysses yet but see if you can find something in the reviews and use it.

For an introduction to modernism check out Oxford VSI of the same name: http://www.veryshortintroductions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780192804419.001.0001/actrade-9780192804419

 

2. Women writers of Victorian period (literary crowd's most favourite and most done-to-death topic and also easy to work around)

Anything by Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Middlemarch & The Mill on the Floss by Mary Ann Evans aka George Elliot.

 

3. Colonies and the English literature (how the colonies were perceived and written about by native English language writers)

Heart of Darkness (set in Congo) and Lord Jim (set in Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia) by Joseph Conrad
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Singapore Grip, The Siege of Krishnapur (India) and Troubles (Ireland) by J.G. Farrell
Burmese Days by George Orwell
Kim & The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling (India)

 

4. A survey of the development of Magic Realism (for genre-focused review).

So far I have mentioned books written originally in English (except for Franz Kafka in #1) but this genre was invented and developed outside the Anglophone world and came to it by way of translation. So if that's okay you're looking at:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia, Spanish)
Haruki Murakami's novels (Japan)
The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende (Chile, Spanish)
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Beloved by Toni Morrison (USA)

 

Others topics might be

5. Postcolonial literature (too fluid and ill-defined to get a lit review),
6. Black writers in America,
7. Dystopian novel
8. Post World War II avant-garde
9. Epic novels of the 18th century
10. Indian English literature

I don't know much about genres like sci-fi, crime & detective, romance, fantasy etc to suggest anything useful.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Marbles

[zahra kazmi]

5 hours ago, Marbles said:

you may consider any one of topics mentioned below.

Thank you so much, Almost all topics are of my interest...thanks again for your kind reply