From Language to Creative Writing: An Introduction
List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction: From language to creative writing The st... more List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction: From language to creative writing The study of language and the practice of creative writing Speech and dialect Inventing a voice Speech and conversation Inventing dialogue Writing and register Context, time and point of view 'Literary' language Writing poetry Afterword: How we shape language to express ourselves Glossary References Index
This study views the female medieval mystics of northern Europe primarily as writers in the perio... more This study views the female medieval mystics of northern Europe primarily as writers in the period from 1250-1400 CE, concentrating on Hadewijch, a Brabantine beguine, Mechthild of Magdeburg, a German beguine with ties to the Cistercian convent of Helfta, and Julian of Norwich, an English anchoress. The writer questions why females writing within a theological context that discouraged female authorship would choose for their subject matter something which cannot be described. Through analysis of the cultural, theological, and literary context within which the women worked, and the mystic literature they produced, the study finds that authority to write was embedded within the vision itself and uncovered through the writer's active, integrative revision and shaping of the liminal experience. The dialogic, social imperative inherent within the mystic situation led those women practicing beguine spirituality to a mixed path of inward and outward action as they sought to continually integrate their visionary insight with their outward reality through writing. Concentrating on the mystics' attention to form, description, synthesis, and audience, the study identifies limitations of past critical approaches including the iii theological, vernacular, liberationist, feminist, and Lacanian. In stressing the mystics' social rather than alienated nature, the writer calls for a revision of our own perspective, a move from interpreting them using the "poetics of desire" model to one stressing a "poetics of integration," concentrating less on their affective and more on their effective piety. The experience of the late medieval mystics is compared to that of a shamanic balancer and healer, one who voyages and mediates between worlds. The last chapter proposes a re-interpretation of the mystics based on new definitions of the self as multiple and networked rather than unitary. It offers insight on the role of the artist using this new model of the narrative self, borrowing concepts from cognitive science to re-describe the liminal or shamanic journey. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks go to the Department of Comparative Literature and the Graduate School at Rutgers University for their inestimable and sorely tried patience in allowing me the space and time to complete this project. In particular, I thank Dr. Janet A.Walker for firmly grounding me in critical theory and for guiding the beginning stages of this work, Dr. Nathaniel Tarn for introducing me to Dante studies, and Dr. Steven F. Walker for sharing his interests in Renaissance mysticism and psychological approaches to literature. Christine Chism from the Rutgers English department served as an outside reader on my dissertation committee and provided very helpful critique, challenging me to redefine, to recognize underlying assumptions, and to search for further ways to show how the mystic writers impacted their world. Thanks also go to past dissertation director Dr. Andrew Welsh for encouragement and advocacy. Many thanks go especially to current director Dr. Alessandro Vettori for insight, ideas, advice, and gracious, supportive criticism. He provided deep understanding of a rather specialized topic and encouraged me to take a critical risk in proposing something new. For providing me with invaluable rhetorical and pedagogical training along with the financial support of instructorships and lectureships, I thank the Rutgers University Writing Program and the English Department of Rider University. I am indebted to several friends and colleagues for support and encouragement, especially Dr. Susan Charles Groth, Dr. Kathleen Sands, Dr. Bettina Caluori, and Nana Owusu. I am very grateful to Carol L. Hostutler for careful reading and perceptive commentary on the draft, and to Doris Thorne for help with Dutch. I also thank the many students who have v challenged me to reexamine my assumptions about the reality of virtual and actual worlds, and for providing continual insight on the ways we use writing to integrate and make sense of our lives. Finally, deep thanks go to the Hostutler and Hamilton families, who never wavered (at least aloud) in their belief that I was working on something worth doing. This dissertation is dedicated with a grateful heart to Ernest F. Hamilton, Jr and William R. Regan, two men who share in the quest for the music of the spheres, who have given continual encouragement and support, and who have never tried to change my nature. vi
Chapter outlining influence of oratorical and rhetorical techniques on life writing, poetry and f... more Chapter outlining influence of oratorical and rhetorical techniques on life writing, poetry and fiction.
Chapter outlining techniques of developing theme and writing sequences in life writing, poetry an... more Chapter outlining techniques of developing theme and writing sequences in life writing, poetry and fiction.
From Language to Creative Writing: An Introduction . By Philip Seargeant and Bill Greenwell . London : Bloomsbury Academic . 2013 . vi+169 pp. £19.99 . ISBN 978-1-408-17521-7
The Modern Language Review, 2015
List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction: From language to creative writing The st... more List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction: From language to creative writing The study of language and the practice of creative writing Speech and dialect Inventing a voice Speech and conversation Inventing dialogue Writing and register Context, time and point of view 'Literary' language Writing poetry Afterword: How we shape language to express ourselves Glossary References Index
Since Asperger's Syndrome was formally recognised in 1994, several novels featuring characters wi... more Since Asperger's Syndrome was formally recognised in 1994, several novels featuring characters with the syndrome have appeared. Bill Greenwell's article discusses these books in providing a context for a closer consideration of the British publishing sensation of 2003, Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'. The reasons for the success of this suburban comedy, Greenwell argues, include the consequences for the reader of Haddon's choice of the sufferer from Asperger's as narrator, especially the generation of unconscious humour and the range of literary forms he uses to tell his story. Nicholas Tucker adds an Afterword from his perspective as an educational psychologist as well as a literary critic, finding in the novel a rich mixture of heroism, mystery and love mediated through narrrative ingenuity.
Selection of satirical poems in the New Statesman archive from 1998-2002 released in online archi... more Selection of satirical poems in the New Statesman archive from 1998-2002 released in online archive in 2009
This paper reflects on the values and practices of a revolutionary UK A level (senior secondary) ... more This paper reflects on the values and practices of a revolutionary UK A level (senior secondary) course that achieved a high degree of validity and reliability in assessing the study of English literature. John Hodgson and Bill Greenwell were involved in its teaching and assessment from an early stage, and Greenwell's comments on an early draft of the paper have been incorporated. The practice of literary response enshrined in the course was based on a striking application of "personal response" to literature, gave students opportunities to show capability in studying and writing a range of literary styles and genres, provided little motive or opportunity for student malpractice, and engaged teachers regionally and nationally in a developed professional community of practice. It remains a touchstone of quality as well as of innovation in English curriculum and assessment.
From Language to Creative Writing: An Introduction
List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction: From language to creative writing The st... more List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction: From language to creative writing The study of language and the practice of creative writing Speech and dialect Inventing a voice Speech and conversation Inventing dialogue Writing and register Context, time and point of view 'Literary' language Writing poetry Afterword: How we shape language to express ourselves Glossary References Index
This study views the female medieval mystics of northern Europe primarily as writers in the perio... more This study views the female medieval mystics of northern Europe primarily as writers in the period from 1250-1400 CE, concentrating on Hadewijch, a Brabantine beguine, Mechthild of Magdeburg, a German beguine with ties to the Cistercian convent of Helfta, and Julian of Norwich, an English anchoress. The writer questions why females writing within a theological context that discouraged female authorship would choose for their subject matter something which cannot be described. Through analysis of the cultural, theological, and literary context within which the women worked, and the mystic literature they produced, the study finds that authority to write was embedded within the vision itself and uncovered through the writer's active, integrative revision and shaping of the liminal experience. The dialogic, social imperative inherent within the mystic situation led those women practicing beguine spirituality to a mixed path of inward and outward action as they sought to continually integrate their visionary insight with their outward reality through writing. Concentrating on the mystics' attention to form, description, synthesis, and audience, the study identifies limitations of past critical approaches including the iii theological, vernacular, liberationist, feminist, and Lacanian. In stressing the mystics' social rather than alienated nature, the writer calls for a revision of our own perspective, a move from interpreting them using the "poetics of desire" model to one stressing a "poetics of integration," concentrating less on their affective and more on their effective piety. The experience of the late medieval mystics is compared to that of a shamanic balancer and healer, one who voyages and mediates between worlds. The last chapter proposes a re-interpretation of the mystics based on new definitions of the self as multiple and networked rather than unitary. It offers insight on the role of the artist using this new model of the narrative self, borrowing concepts from cognitive science to re-describe the liminal or shamanic journey. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks go to the Department of Comparative Literature and the Graduate School at Rutgers University for their inestimable and sorely tried patience in allowing me the space and time to complete this project. In particular, I thank Dr. Janet A.Walker for firmly grounding me in critical theory and for guiding the beginning stages of this work, Dr. Nathaniel Tarn for introducing me to Dante studies, and Dr. Steven F. Walker for sharing his interests in Renaissance mysticism and psychological approaches to literature. Christine Chism from the Rutgers English department served as an outside reader on my dissertation committee and provided very helpful critique, challenging me to redefine, to recognize underlying assumptions, and to search for further ways to show how the mystic writers impacted their world. Thanks also go to past dissertation director Dr. Andrew Welsh for encouragement and advocacy. Many thanks go especially to current director Dr. Alessandro Vettori for insight, ideas, advice, and gracious, supportive criticism. He provided deep understanding of a rather specialized topic and encouraged me to take a critical risk in proposing something new. For providing me with invaluable rhetorical and pedagogical training along with the financial support of instructorships and lectureships, I thank the Rutgers University Writing Program and the English Department of Rider University. I am indebted to several friends and colleagues for support and encouragement, especially Dr. Susan Charles Groth, Dr. Kathleen Sands, Dr. Bettina Caluori, and Nana Owusu. I am very grateful to Carol L. Hostutler for careful reading and perceptive commentary on the draft, and to Doris Thorne for help with Dutch. I also thank the many students who have v challenged me to reexamine my assumptions about the reality of virtual and actual worlds, and for providing continual insight on the ways we use writing to integrate and make sense of our lives. Finally, deep thanks go to the Hostutler and Hamilton families, who never wavered (at least aloud) in their belief that I was working on something worth doing. This dissertation is dedicated with a grateful heart to Ernest F. Hamilton, Jr and William R. Regan, two men who share in the quest for the music of the spheres, who have given continual encouragement and support, and who have never tried to change my nature. vi
Chapter outlining influence of oratorical and rhetorical techniques on life writing, poetry and f... more Chapter outlining influence of oratorical and rhetorical techniques on life writing, poetry and fiction.
Chapter outlining techniques of developing theme and writing sequences in life writing, poetry an... more Chapter outlining techniques of developing theme and writing sequences in life writing, poetry and fiction.
From Language to Creative Writing: An Introduction . By Philip Seargeant and Bill Greenwell . London : Bloomsbury Academic . 2013 . vi+169 pp. £19.99 . ISBN 978-1-408-17521-7
The Modern Language Review, 2015
List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction: From language to creative writing The st... more List of tables and figures Acknowledgments Introduction: From language to creative writing The study of language and the practice of creative writing Speech and dialect Inventing a voice Speech and conversation Inventing dialogue Writing and register Context, time and point of view 'Literary' language Writing poetry Afterword: How we shape language to express ourselves Glossary References Index
Since Asperger's Syndrome was formally recognised in 1994, several novels featuring characters wi... more Since Asperger's Syndrome was formally recognised in 1994, several novels featuring characters with the syndrome have appeared. Bill Greenwell's article discusses these books in providing a context for a closer consideration of the British publishing sensation of 2003, Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'. The reasons for the success of this suburban comedy, Greenwell argues, include the consequences for the reader of Haddon's choice of the sufferer from Asperger's as narrator, especially the generation of unconscious humour and the range of literary forms he uses to tell his story. Nicholas Tucker adds an Afterword from his perspective as an educational psychologist as well as a literary critic, finding in the novel a rich mixture of heroism, mystery and love mediated through narrrative ingenuity.
Selection of satirical poems in the New Statesman archive from 1998-2002 released in online archi... more Selection of satirical poems in the New Statesman archive from 1998-2002 released in online archive in 2009
This paper reflects on the values and practices of a revolutionary UK A level (senior secondary) ... more This paper reflects on the values and practices of a revolutionary UK A level (senior secondary) course that achieved a high degree of validity and reliability in assessing the study of English literature. John Hodgson and Bill Greenwell were involved in its teaching and assessment from an early stage, and Greenwell's comments on an early draft of the paper have been incorporated. The practice of literary response enshrined in the course was based on a striking application of "personal response" to literature, gave students opportunities to show capability in studying and writing a range of literary styles and genres, provided little motive or opportunity for student malpractice, and engaged teachers regionally and nationally in a developed professional community of practice. It remains a touchstone of quality as well as of innovation in English curriculum and assessment.
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