The following abstract is for my MA thesis, which is held in the Edith Garland Dupré Library at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Fantasy literature currently suffers the general disdain of the academic community, which tends to view it as escapist, puerile nonsense. Fantasy literature, however, is every bit as subtle and nuanced as the genres of literature more commonly accepted by the academy as meriting critical consideration; it is fully capable of addressing the same issues, exhibiting the same qualities, and supporting the same sorts of readings as other forms of literature.
A critical reading of the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies of Robin Hobb serves as a case study in support of the viability of applying critical techniques to fantasy literature. Such a reading, in this case analyzing the texts through a structuralist, intertextual approach, reveals Hobb’s texts to be reliant on selective inclusion of tropes present in Arthurian literature to negotiate the escapist nature of fantasy fiction and thereby foster Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” through establishing a Tolkienan “inner consistency of reality.” Coupled with brief suggestions of other critical approaches which Hobb’s texts support, the application of a structuralist, intertextual method to the texts suggests that they have literary merit in the traditional academic sense of the term. By extension, the successful application of critical theory to any fantasy text suggests the “literariness” of the genre as a whole.