I remember being exposed to low-end literary theory when I was in junior high school, back in the early sixties. It never made much sense to me. I still remember being asked to compare two stories with regard to one of theme, plot, characterization, or setting, and not being able to figure out how to start. On the other hand, when the assignment was to write about who was my favorite character in a work, and why, I had no trouble with that. I suppose that's more the kind of thing that fans of a work talk about.
"Theme" actually only made sense to me, finally, as a result of being a game master. Somewhere along the way, I thought about how I had to pick out what sort of situations to confront the players with, and what would fit the campaign idea and meet their expectations, and it fell into place-that principle of selection that I'm going by is the theme of the campaign!
I didn't get exposed to any sort of formal literary theory for a long time. Oh, I suppose I got it in my first year literature course at UCSD, but I didn't really make a serious effort to follow what the lecturers were saying; I read the assigned works and wrote about them based on what I thought about them. I have no idea what sort of critical paradigm they were using back in 1968-1969. I picked up my ideas about literature from reading all sorts of eccentric works, from Robert Graves's The White Goddess to Brigid Brophy's Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without. I read The Pooh Perplex, but I'm sure I must have missed most of the jokes. . . .
"Theme" actually only made sense to me, finally, as a result of being a game master. Somewhere along the way, I thought about how I had to pick out what sort of situations to confront the players with, and what would fit the campaign idea and meet their expectations, and it fell into place-that principle of selection that I'm going by is the theme of the campaign!
I didn't get exposed to any sort of formal literary theory for a long time. Oh, I suppose I got it in my first year literature course at UCSD, but I didn't really make a serious effort to follow what the lecturers were saying; I read the assigned works and wrote about them based on what I thought about them. I have no idea what sort of critical paradigm they were using back in 1968-1969. I picked up my ideas about literature from reading all sorts of eccentric works, from Robert Graves's The White Goddess to Brigid Brophy's Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without. I read The Pooh Perplex, but I'm sure I must have missed most of the jokes. . . .
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