siege, besieging, beleaguering, military_blockade

- the action of an armed force that surrounds a fortified place and isolates it while continuing to attack

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/siege

Possession
An exhilarating novel of wit and romance, an intellectual mystery, and a triumphant love story. This tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets became a huge bookseller favorite, and then on to national bestellerdom.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679735909/102...


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Note added at 15 mins (2004-12-21 18:43:39 GMT)
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But seige can also refer to the efforts of someone to gain the love of someone else. To lay seige to the castle of love.

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Note added at 16 mins (2004-12-21 18:44:29 GMT)
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CORRECTION: But siege can also refer to the efforts of someone to gain the love of someone else. To lay siege to the castle of love.

English term (edited): siege-paper

From the context of asking permission, it would seem like it is a doctoral/master thesis or term paper. In that case, it could be a term that became used in other contexts as well.

English term (edited): siege-paper

Chapter 8 - Maud receives a letter from Fergus:

"would you be pleased to hear I have decided to give a paper on Cristabel at the York Conference on metaphor? I thought I'd lecture on The Queen of the Castel: What is kept in the Keep?............(in signing off) Please give me the go-ahead on my siege-paper."

Later "She (Maud) was annoyed at his proposal for a siege-paper..."

Chapter 3 - "Fergus was writing a deconstructive account of Balzac's Chef d'oeuvre inconnu." (He's in the English Dept at Prince Albert College)

Definitely not a paper written during a siege. Could the siege have something to do with the castle reference? Or is it some sort of academic code language?

http://www.mcgoodwin.net/pages/otherbooks/asb_possession.htm...
Chapter 8
Roland and Maud go over the letters in Sir George Bailey's cold library. He is annoyed at Maud's terms--she will read CLM's letters and he will read RHA's. RHA seems to have read Christabel's insect poems. He seems to have been under stress.

The individual letters are quoted. CLM is concerned about their letters being seen by others. RHA speaks of her intelligence, the nature of poetry versus novels, her work The Drowned City (on the drowned City of Is/Ys, which Queen Dahud, the sorceress, ruled). Maud explains this was a Breton legend like The Standing Stones.

Back at her flat, Maud learns by letter that Leonora Stern is coming. CLM's riddle about an Egg and her need for solitude is quoted. ****Fergus has also written Maud, saying Roland is not in her class, wants to consult her archives about a "siege-paper" he wishes to write****, asks if she has read Lacan [Jacques Lacan, a French Freudian psychoanalyst 1901-1981]. Leonora's letter refers to her interest in female imagery and CLM's lesbian sexuality in Melusina and Drowned City, of water, milk and amniotic fluid, etc. She wants Maud to present a paper to the Sapphic society.



I have read the book, but cannot remember the precise details, nor do I have a copy. Perhaps someone who has it can check out Fergus, who is Maud's ex, if I remember rightly, and see where his research interests lie, and if it's history, then Kim's answer is probably right.





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Note added at 47 mins (2004-12-21 19:15:30 GMT)
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On the other hand, the fact that \'siege-paper\' is written with a hypen would tend to indicate that it is NOT a \'siege paper\', i.e. a paper on a siege, but something with a specific meaning, also see these refs below, which would indicate that the meaning is not the obvious one.

http://www.book555.com/book555_com/index.asp?book=237&chapte...
From:
The Great Boer War by Arthur Conan Doyle
On some days there was more shell-fire,
on some less;
on some there was sniping,
on some none;
on some they sent a little feeler of cavalry and guns out of the town,
on most they lay still -- such were the ups and downs of life in Ladysmith.
***The inevitable siege paper, \'The Ladysmith Lyre,\'
appeared, and did something
to relieve the monotony by the exasperation of its jokes.****
Night,
morning,
and noon the shells rained upon the town until the most timid learned fatalism if not bravery.

http://www.collectors.com/articles/article_view.chtml?artid=...
(37) Spain\'s holdings included the Low Countries in Europe as well as territories in the New World. ***The Leyden (Holland) 1574 siege paper composition 28 stuivers emergency issue from a Spanish attack on the city makes the list***. This is a very rare coin.


*****More findings, following the lead of the Ladysmith Lyre above:

http://www.benbeculahistorysociety.co.uk/JANAP02.HTM
I think there will be much blood spilt before they surrender.” We also have original issues of ****the “Ladysmith Lyre” a newsletter written by the besieged troops****, and from an issue dated 5 December 1899 an official account of the fight at Modder River: ......

http://www.pinetreeweb.com/davis-chapter-02.htm
In the ****Ladysmith Lyre and in the Bomb-shell Poems, written and printed during the siege****, one obtains some very interesting side-lights on the state of mind of those who were then languishing in the \"Doomed City,\" as was its premature epitaph.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,246302,00...
The Boer war (1899-1902) would prove to be the first mass media war. ......The army also tried to keep a stranglehold on the transmission of news within the town - often not revealing setbacks in the advance of the relief column for fear of lowering morale, and frequently passing complete misinformation. It was in this context that Nevinson and Steevens contributed to *****a siege newspaper****, the Ladysmith Lyre, which ****burlesqued the military propaganda machine by disseminating news which, as the masthead promised,\"you can actually rely on as false\"*****.

http://www.tameside.gov.uk/leisure/new/lh39.htm
Fighting a war of attrition also deeply affected morale. This was a new experience for the British which deeply humiliated them, especially as they outnumbered the Boers 2-1. The men tried to improve morale by ****producing siege newspapers such as the \"Ladysmith Lyre\".****

http://www.bosleys.net/B54results.htm
The Book and Ephemera section started with a collection of Home Guard histories which created a lot of interest; other lots included Lot 637, \"The Mafeking Mail\" siege newspapers which sold for £600. The African continent again caused a stir, when Lot 681, the rather childish signature of Zulu Chief Cetywayo hammered at £650.


*****On this basis, a siege-paper seems to be a newsletter written by troops under siege....

I think that it undoubtedly a newspaper, and to confirm it, it would be ideal to know what Fergus is researching.

PS I think it\'s an error in the summarised texts: ****Fergus has also written Maud, saying Roland is not in her class, wants to consult her archives about a \"siege-paper\" he wishes to write ON****, and maybe somoen who has the book could cjheck thta in Ch.8.



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Note added at 48 mins (2004-12-21 19:17:02 GMT)
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PS, it seems to be associated with the Boer War, so if Fergu\'s research interest is in that area, or with any of the poets of that time, then that\'s your answer!

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Note added at 4 hrs 34 mins (2004-12-21 23:02:19 GMT)
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In view of Sue\'s information, which would confirm that the reference isn\'t historical, only 2 possibilities reamin:

1. the reference is obscure academic-ese, and only someone in the know can understand what it refers to

2. Fergus is using \'siege-paper\' as a metaphor, understood among his colleagues. His use of the term may be ironic, i.e. he is writing a paper in what he perceives as a \'siege\' context (publishing pressures, for example?)

There is also this reference to a lecture - on metaphor - on \"The Queen of the Castel: What is kept in the Keep?..........\"(taken from Sue\'s quotes from the book), and maybe he is referring to some lady \'besieged\' in the castle...?????

Siege (siège): a chair or seat used by someone of rank or distinction.
Oxford Shorter Dictionary.

Byatt (AS) Possession Summary
... In her own introduction, AS Byatt ((Antonia Susan Byatt née Drabble) discusses how ...
Back at her flat, Maud learns by letter that Leonora Stern is coming. CLM's riddle about an Egg and her need for solitude is quoted. Fergus has also written Maud, saying Roland is not in her class, wants to consult her archives about a "siege-paper" he wishes to write, asks if she has read Lacan [Jacques Lacan, a French Freudian psychoanalyst 1901-1981]. Leonora's letter refers to her interest in female imagery and CLM's lesbian sexuality in Melusina and Drowned City, of water, milk and amniotic fluid, etc. She wants Maud to present a paper to the Sapphic society.
http://www.mcgoodwin.net/pages/otherbooks/asb_possession.htm...


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Note added at 2 days 11 hrs 43 mins (2004-12-24 06:11:27 GMT) Post-grading
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found this reference