RHETORICAL MODES AT PLAY: AN EXERCISE IN LITERARY AND CREATIVE WRITING RESEARCH PRACTICE EXPLORED

This paper examines the complexity of fictocritical writing as a form which draws together creative writing,literary and cultural theory, and self-reflexive writing to create a hybrid text as a scholarly genre inresearch. Encouraging students to combine creative and critical work in literary studies or in writingcourses, allows them to build a bridge between ways of responding to texts which are traditionally taughtand assessed as two distinct forms. The paper uses the example of an undergraduate student’s Honoursthesis as a catalyst for discussing the nature of fictocritical writing. Fictocritical work as a scholarly genreoffers different possibilities for combining theoretical and creative approaches to responding to and producingtexts; it offers a bridge between the creative and theoretical in research, either in the discipline ofcreative writing or in literary studies.