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The Dragon's Map

其他書名	Guiding and Rousing the Poet
出版	University of Canberra, 2019
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=ie6pzQEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋This thesis inhabits territory between the work of the literary critic and the reflective creativewriter. Employing a meditative and creatively recursive method of analysis, it considers howpoets often write from within the confines of a provocative playlet, and see the world from thesanctuary of their memories of their childhood home, focused by an inner eye. Borrowing judiciouslyfrom Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series, the thesis calls this way of composing creativework 'visiting her dragons'. As a result of such 'visits', a poet's work incorporates the slow,building, climaxing, revelation of drama in an alternative world whose laws of motion escapeher full control.The thesis also defends the claim that significant (valuable, novel or fitting) poetic linesgerminate in ordered subjective scenes, generally 'inhabited' by that author. Original poemsspring from a writer occupying an imagined scene's space and structure, though are hardlydeducible from it. The poet becomes a character in her own daydream scenario, one whichgrows circuitously from her mesmerising mythos of home and provides the feeling, image, andthought that lets her 'find the words' rather than making them up out of nowhere-or merelyrehashing what she1 has read. In it she can 'rewrite history' if she wishes. This process becomesspecific to a given work, and tends to point beyond the quotidian and the charted. A new, singularscene makes a space in the mind for both imaginative and critical thought. Further, suchscenes are communicable to readers, however imperfectly, because they connect in variousways to readers' own experiences of and understandings of home. This is important not leastbecause it emphasises how centrally connected poetry is to human experience in the world, andto sensory modes of apprehension.This thesis also pursues questions such as how imaginal scenes grow from the writer's senseof place and origin ('home'); how they join with other influences; how they are disciplined intoa work; and how they are transferred in verbal form to a reader. Images are central, as the poetmay be alienated or distanced from the 'real' world and yet, because of that 'exile', able to seeit in some perspective while still empathising with it and its inhabitants. The poet is thus impelledto set out her impressions imaginatively and the act of writing is an 'emergent' or unpredictableproduct of a special sort of daydream. The writer's 'history' of daydreaming, with itsdeveloping scenes, is at first 'naïve' but must become 'lucid': a mental state she is acutely awareof; a daydream she feels she must revisit and structure or discipline (though flexibly) in orderto go on writing. That demands a great deal of conceptual criticality and, conversely, of motivatingpassion and empathy-a 'critical empathy' (or critical immersion). She must feel andconstruct at the same time. And whenever we start a new project, we start from what we feelwe really know: the concept of 'home' mentioned above. Without home, we have nowhere tobegin, no anchor. With it we may make positive change, even revolution.The discussion of these issues is supported by an interpretation of English-language poetry and(to a lesser degree) examples of poetic prose / prose poetry, taken mostly from c.1920-2000.Each of these works amply illustrates that an imaginal scene partaking of home was importantfor the writer's poesis. It also includes a consideration of the origins of the author's own poetry,as a kind of case study providing evidence for the thesis's conclusions. The thesis as a whole ispart literary criticism and literary theory-and, more generally, an attempt to arrive at anilluminating view of that fascinating conundrum, literary creativity.