The beautiful advantage to writing a thesis concerning something you love (in my case, Sandman, Shakespeare, & Plautus) is what ends up falling under the purview of "research". In my sick and twisted rationale, every attempt must be made to uncover anything which could possibly contribute to the project at hand.
This, by the way, is impossible. And, as H.H. Furness avowed a hundred or so years ago, "were I told that my closest friend was lying at the point of death, and that his life could be saved by permitting him to divulge his theory of Hamlet, I would instantly say, ‘Let him die! Let him die! Let him die!"
Shakespeare, and his very corporeal body of work, is someone we simply cannot shut up about—as he himself could not keep his mouth shut nor quill clean of Titus Maccius Plautus (we write what we know, I suppose). Gaiman's well on his way, as this blog and every other of its kind will attest. So to begin a project obsessed with amassing said body of work is suicidal.
Which is exactly the fight I had had with myself yesterday, "researching" McKean's current work while re-reading Preludes & Nocturnes, trying desperately to justify the intensive google image search with my very own completist research philosophy. I looked at this damn picture and knew it would never be useful in my thesis. It's just gorgeous. And no, that's not enough: beauty for its own sake is not the province of an academic piece—or at least not this one. But I can't bring myself to trash these gems I find along the way. Nor the conversations they may inspire.
So, a blog.
Here, I hope to host a forum of indulgence. All the Gaiman/Sandman information I cannot part with, juicy tidbits here and there on Will and Plautus. Nerdy interludes. Fantastic musings. High-minded rubbish, occasionally. And you, my dear and prospective readers, are invited.
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