If self-publishing represents a vital, resistive addition to the literary field due to its democratisation of the publishing process and, crucially, the manner in which it empowers new authorial voices and character representation, what are the implications for high fantasy authors and the publishing industry?

Abstract

This thesis explores the persuasive effects of literature both personally and socially, via the codification of character archetypes in fiction (exemplified here in high fantasy fiction). This thesis firstly explores the manner in which literature can affect individuals’ beliefs, and how certain representations of groups (in this case, women) can be inherited and maintained through genre norms, themselves maintained through traditional publishing models and financial concerns. Next, this thesis offers an analysis of self-published novels’ responses to the archetypal representations of women within high fantasy, as exemplified in two popular high fantasy works, The Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones, and four self-published novels (including the author’s own). It then focuses on whether self-publishing allows for the highlighted genre norms to be more easily subverted due to the nature of the new publishing model. It concludes with a discussion on the possibility of a new form of literary understanding, termed by the author ‘multiliteraryism’. Building on debates in the field of world literature and multilingualism, multiliteraryism, it is suggested, can offer a new method of understanding multiple voices and representations, absent any denigration in terms of the means of publication.