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Towards writing the universe : early drafts for silence, practice and theory

This Creative and Critical Writing thesis is both the documentation of a creative journey towards the composition of an epic poem and the inauguration of an original poetic methodology. Under the diverse influences of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), Matthew Barney (b.l967), T. S. Eliot (1882-1965), and David Jones (1895-1974), and embracing the essential critical criteria for a Creative Writing project undertaken within Higher Education, it transforms the reflexive rationale into a coequally creative part of the artistic process. Aestheticising the ancient religious tradition of apophatic theology, and deploying a hermetic correspondence with Big Bang cosmology, the concept of what an epic poem can be is radically reconsidered, creating through the hermeneutic exchange between poetic and critical voices what is here termed a conceptual, or disembodied. poetics. Whilst the epic remains very much a work in progress, the original contribution to creative knowledge made by this thesis is fourfold. Firstly, it is the documentation of a creative journey, tracing the development of a unique creative perspective and the maturation of a creative voice; secondly, it re-imagines what an epic poem can be, moving beyond the purely textual into a negative-conceptual space; thirdly, it translates the religious import of apophatic theology into creative form; and fourthly, it demonstrates how the conventions of Creative Writing within Higher Education can be transformed from a reactive requirement into a coequally creative part of the art.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:502228
Date January 2009
CreatorsMasters, Tom
ContributorsMelrose, Andy ; Stuart, Liz
PublisherUniversity of Winchester
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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