The Inevitable Euhemerism of Sir Walter Scott Kayla Kibbe College

Somewhere along the normally parallel lines of reality and fiction, the two opposing entities meet in what has proven to be a breeding ground of entertainment. Its own kind of uncanny valley, there is something infinitely fascinating about that which mimics reality, but remains fiction – that which crosses the boarder into reality bearing an ethereal resemblance to the real only to vanish back into the realm of the fictitious. This flirtation between the real and represented worlds – this simultaneously uneasy yet transcendent dance across its boundaries – is both art and artifice, and the products it yields are seldom received without a corresponding ambivalence. Before reality television took the stage as the latest installment of this series of almost grotesque mock reality, the novel made its own popular but far from erudite appearance. Though the novel has since risen through the ranks and perhaps even surpassed the heights of literary nobility enjoyed by verse, it too once occupied the bottom feeding, soulless rank of reality television. Accused of the capital crime of falsehood masquerading as truth, the novel was decried as sinful, deceitful, and fake. If the inherently deceitful nature of verisimilitude offends,...