ABSTRACT

The paper considers the personal determinants of quality in writing, by exploring poet Ted Hughes's proposition that ‘psychological crises' are necessary ‘to awaken genius in an otherwise ordinary mind.' Inspiration for this exploration is provided by the author's work as a creative writing mentor on a rehabilitation programme for injured and ill servicepeople. The experience of that programme is that participants will often produce compelling writing on the topics that have scarred them. Hughes's book Poetry in the Making provides some insights into why this might be the case, by suggesting that poetic composition is not a matter of close and professional consideration of the right words for any given topic, but rather emerges through an intensely-embodied imagining of one's subject matter. Hughes argues that when one acts out some subject matter vividly in one’s mind, the words emerge as if of their own accord, and with far more mimetic aptness. My argument is that the traumatized engage in such intense imagining as their very condition, and so end up doing the very thing Hughes recommends, when taking their trauma as their topic.

摘要

这篇论文通过探讨诗人泰德·休斯（Ted Hughes）提出的“心理危机”是“唤醒普通头脑中的天才”所必需的命题，探讨了写作质量的个人决定因素。作者作为创意写作导师为受伤和生病的军人提供康复计划的工作为这一探索提供了灵感。该计划的经验是，参与者通常会就让他们伤痕累累的主题写出引人入胜的文章。休斯的《创作中的诗》一书通过表明诗歌创作不是对任何给定主题的正确词语进行仔细和专业的考虑，而是通过对一个人的主题的强烈体现的想象而出现，从而提供了一些关于为什么会出现这种情况的见解。休斯认为，当一个人在脑海中生动地表现出某个主题时，这些词就好像是自动出现的，而且模仿性要强得多。我的论点是，受过创伤的人会像他们的状况一样进行如此强烈的想象，因此最终会按照休斯的建议，将他们的创伤作为他们的主题。