Dealing with the Creative/Critical Divide: These men as readers simply cannot know what it is to write

This paper analyses the contested or dual role of the creative writing researcher within the academic environment. By examining the opinions of creative writers with regard to critical theorists, and the reverse, the case will be made that an unnecessary binary is forced on creative researchers. This binary, making the writer choose whether to focus on creative or critical output, cannot be productive for the writer in academia and so a third option will be proposed, a means by which to confront the continual oscillation between these two poles. A methodology is suggested, and explored, which engages with both the creative and critical aspects of this specific form of research in an equal and cyclical manner. In order to explore the application of this methodology, the author’s own research into a project exploring current literary theory acts as a case study, ultimately leading to a metamodern understanding of this desire to occupy both roles, despite the seeming impossibility of such.