Dawson: Chatpers 1 and 2

I'm skipping some material here, since it's not so relevant to my current project. For future reference, however, Dawson's first chapter offers an interesting examination of the transition from "imagination" to "creativity" in the 17th century. Lots of good leads here for research on creativity. I'll repeat his quoting of Hobbes's Leviathan here, since it stood out to me. Hobbes identifies two forms of imagination:

simple Imagination; as when one imagineth a man, or horse, which he hath seen before. The other is Compound; as when from the sight of a man at one time, and of a horse at another, we conceive in our mind a Centaure (Dawson 23)

Dawson tells us Hobbes thought Compound imagination was the type for poetic invention, and I have to agree. It seems to me that this is precisely where "ideas come from." But I don't really want to run down that rabbit trail just now. Have to revisit all this another time.

His second chapter covers "Disciplinary Origins" which is not quite a full history, but more a set of small histories of "various elements of contemporary Creative Writing theory and pedagogy in their original institutional contexts" (50). He looks at "creative self-expression" as a Romantic notion; "literacy" and the origins of English Composition; "craft" and the proliferation of creative writing handbooks; "literature from the inside," which relates New Criticism and early writing workshops, and finally "Emergence of the workshop." Again, a bit afield of what I'm aiming for, which is an in-depth treatment of theory and CW, although there are a few things in his treatment of "literature from the inside" which might be useful in thinking about New Criticism and CW.

Pgs 75-76 lead me to believe that the relationship between New Criticism and Creative Writing is closer than I thought. They came into being at approximately the same time, and Dawson feels that NC is the sin qua non of CW as it exists today:

the workshop developed and became the dominant mode of teaching writing because of the influence of the New Criticism. Creative Writing became an institutional site for the literary authority of writers, the close scrutiny of individual student manuscripts relied upon practical criticism (76)

Dawson also points out that the major figures of New Criticism were poets first. So how antagonistic to CW could NC really be? I think I need to read up on NC a bit more to get what's going on here.

Leads:

An article by Norman Foester offer his understanding of Creative Writing as an aid to criticism:
(1936) 'Literary Scholarship and Criticism', English Journal coll. edn 25: 224-32.

An article by Allen Tate begins the whole "reading as a writer" deal:
"'We read as writers': The Creative Arts Program and How it is Helpign Freshman Would-Be Authors', Princeton Alumni Weekly 40: 505-6.

I've got some stuff on the New Critics, and will have to delve into it. He mentioned some "heresies" that I hadn't heard of before. "Didactic heresy" and "Heresy of the Paraphrase"... I'll be reading some of this stuff this semester, I expect.

Also, he makes it look like D.G. Myer's book ("The Elephants Teach") is an important source for understanding the connection between New Criticism and CW.


Going forward:

If the relationship between New Criticism and Creative Writing isn't one of the latter lazily appropriating the former without critical reflection but rather is one of the latter requiring the former to take its present shape, then this may not be the way I want to go in my research this semester....still processing this...