Ramshackle, a novel, and microbursts and topologies, lyrical essays

Reeder, Elizabeth K. (2009) Ramshackle, a novel, and microbursts and topologies, lyrical essays. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This PhD consists of a novel, Ramshackle, and a book of lyrical essays, microbursts and topologies.

Anne Carson talks about Joan of Arc’s answers at her trials, sentences spoken such as ‘The light comes in the name of the voice’, which Carson describes as ‘a sentence that stops itself. Its components are simple yet it stays foreign, we cannot own it.’ (Carson 2008)

This Creative Writing PhD thesis is a journey of four and a half years. The first element, Ramshackle, a novel, is Roe Davis’ narrative of the first days of life after her father’s disappearance, and was written during the first year of the PhD. microbursts and topologies follows as a collection of conjectured, composited and imagined pieces on landscapes, memory, creativity and loss. These pieces might be defined as prose poems, essays, stories and memoir, or simply as lyrical essays. As these essays crossover and move between forms, as they dissolve boundaries, they are one and other, neither and multiple.

This thesis places two distinct primary creative texts beside each other like pictures in a gallery. The plain and simple pressed up against the unfathomable. The writing of this thesis raised questions about how we, as makers, apply our research to creative works, and also about how creative works convey ideas, knowledge, and insights. Additionally, the crossover form of the lyrical essays encourages the reading of primary texts without mediation, introduction or explanation, and illuminates different reading practices and ways of acquiring knowledge from creative works. In this thesis process and genealogy are palimpsested, obscured and made into landscapes and by reading you make them your own.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: essay, lyrical essay, novel, creative writing PhD, crossover, practice-led research, loss.
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
• Supervisor's Name: Maley, Dr Willy and Maslen, Dr Robert
• Date of Award: 2009
• Depositing User: Dr Elizabeth Karen Reeder
• Unique ID: glathesis:2009-1369
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 09 Dec 2009
• Last Modified: 25 Jul 2017 14:05
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/1369