This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module encourages students to establish connections between the critical analysis of literary texts and creative writing practice. Adopting a 'learning by doing'-driven analytical approach, students will engage both theoretically and practically with a selection of literary features and techniques. By reading closely a wide-ranging selection of short literary sample texts that encompass older and contemporary texts originally written in English as well as translations of texts written in languages other than English, we will analyse topics including character, point of view, setting, voice, style, structure, openings, and endings. We will also pay close attention to questions of translation and cultural specificity, and to the challenges of working with translations in a creative writing context.
Total Contact Hours: 20
Essay (2,000 words) – 60%
Creative Writing Portfolio (2,000 words) – 40%
Indicative Reading List
The seminar leader will provide short extracts for each seminar drawn from a selection of English, American, German, French and Russian literary texts.
Students will be asked to obtain any edition of the following:
Lodge, D. (2011). The Art of Fiction. London: Vintage
Prose, F. (2012). Reading like a Writer. London: Union Books
Wood, J. (2009). How Fiction Works. London: Vintage
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
Establish connections between the critical analysis of literary texts and creative writing practice;
Identify and critically evaluate innovative techniques and aesthetic devices found in a range of literary texts;
Experiment with how such an understanding can be applied in creative writing practice;
Develop an awareness of the challenges that face creative writers both from the point of view of the literary scholar and the practising creative writer;
Gain a deep critical understanding of a range of literary features and techniques and their functions;
Plan and execute short pieces of creative writing that put into practice their theoretical understanding of literary devices and techniques.
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