Distance Reading: How Not To Read A Victorian Novel: Franco Moretti's Maximum Methodological boldness.

By Captain Marryat, The Children of the New Forest, 1864, Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Posting Date: January 14, 2013 [EBook #6471]

Release Date: September, 2004

First Posted: December 18, 2002

What do you think this work is about? That is the question for students. It is an historical fiction, written in 1864.

I think it is a fictional story based on some true incidences. I will also take a wild stab in the dark at what the themes could be; war, Kings, history, romance. And the characteristics, civil war, rebellion, England, Hampton Court, Cavaliers, Commons. As well as how the plot may be based; on settings, characters, subject, old, new, and forest; the style also could be formed by adventure, the language of the time and influences during the period.

My Predictions about: Captain Marryat, the Children of the New Forest

There will be acceleration of excitement and words like escape, capture, kill, love, and sward

There will be a description of a new era, rebellious movement, and personal values of spoken content.

Dark scary forest scenes. The word forest will be used a lot.--

I wasn't very on with my predictions. I should have thought about the fact that this story was written for juveniles of the 18th century. I have been told an age group was even more definitive during that time period. It is possible that juvenile was a rating; the adventure plot is also written different than I expected. I think the style as well was meant for the age group. It could also have been common for the narrative to be set on a playtime theme, as it looks like may be the case here. I think this all had to do with the genre of the time period. But it doesn't seem as colorful as my prediction. If I knew how to write well, I may have been able to come up with a whole new story.

The plot would have to be different of course and so would the genre, but it gave me an opportunity to imagine some characteristics for characters. I had to brainstorm styles, beliefs and values to add for excitement and genre which in turn gave me ideas. This could be a good writing tool.

I was right about the word forest as it is in the title. The word old is also used often but I think that is because of the language at that time. Searching through this book shows me a more simplistic version of the story than I imagined. I didn't see war much but I could look further. As for the Hampton Court and the Cavaliers I have yet to find out how those things play in. Still examining with out reading the book.

I can see what is happening in the story when I click on one of the phrases below.

Click each phrase and receive a myriad of information.