A matter of loyalty: engaging with America’s revolutionary past as a creative writer

Brown, Caroline Jeanette (2019) A matter of loyalty: engaging with America’s revolutionary past as a creative writer. DFA thesis, University of Glasgow.

Due to Embargo and/or Third Party Copyright restrictions, this thesis is not available in this service.
Printed Thesis Information: https://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b3345157

Abstract

This project encompasses a historical fiction novel set during the American Revolution and a collection of familiar essays exploring different ways in which creative writers seek to access the eighteenth-century past. The essays, which form my critical component, are intended for a general audience and draw on a variety of theoretical approaches to reading and writing fiction. The first essay, ‘Story Truth’, engages with the notion of ‘authenticity’ and the challenges of using primary historical sources as a creative writer. The second essay, ‘Dear John Adams’, analyzes three fictional iterations of one eighteenth-century historical figure. The third essay, ‘Shifts and Stays’, focuses on my experiential research at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and reenactment as both theory and practice. The historical novel, which forms my creative component, explores the life of a Loyalist woman in South Carolina during the Revolution, as well as the lives of her cousin and an enslaved woman in her household. Building on a variety of primary sources, experiential research and secondary accounts, the novel illuminates perspectives on the Revolution that are not often explored in historical fiction.

Item Type: Thesis (DFA)
Qualification Level: Doctoral
Additional Information: volume 1: Essays - volume 2: Between the Devil and the Deep Sea (a novel), afterword and bibliography.
Keywords: American Revolution, historical fiction, loyalists, South Carolina, women.
Subjects: E History America > E151 United States (General)
H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies
Supervisor's Name: Reeder, Dr. Elizabeth
Date of Award: 2019
Embargo Date: 7 April 2022
Depositing User: Dr Caroline Brown
Unique ID: glathesis:2019-41147
Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
Date Deposited: 16 May 2019 09:10
Last Modified: 22 Feb 2022 16:36
Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.41147
URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/41147

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