Elephants Teach:Creative Writing (Prentice Hall Studies in Writing and Culture) - Softcover

Myers, Jeffrey

3.18

78 ratings by Goodreads

9780133240139: Elephants Teach:Creative Writing (Prentice Hall Studies in Writing and Culture)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0133240134 ISBN 13: 9780133240139

Publisher: Prentice-Hall, 1995

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This book traces the development of "creative" writing as a classroom subject, the teaching of fiction- and verse-writing; and as a national system for the employment of fiction writers and poets to teach the subject. It answers the questions, "Why has fiction and verse writing come to be called creative?" and "When and why was this term first used?"

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Review:

"In clear prose and careful scholarship, David Myers . . . tells the story of how what was supposed to free English literature from the trap of academic disciplines became itself an academic discipline."

"The Elephants Teach is an astonishing piece of work. . . . Under the author's magic it becomes the story of a great part of our culture since the turn of the century." -- from the Foreword by Jacques Barzun

"This material I think should be required for anyone who intends to teach creative writing on the college or university level."--Patrick Bizzaro "College Composition and Communication "

""The Elephants Teach" is an astonishing piece of work. . . . Under the author's magic it becomes the story of a great part of our culture since the turn of the century." - from the Foreword by Jacques Barzun
--from the Foreword by Jacques Barzun

"Myers is thorough, his writing is clear, and the history he has to tell will be to most, if not all, current teachers of creative writing little short of a revelation. . . . This is a book all teachers of creative writing should read."History of Education Quarterly">
--Roger Mitchell "History of Education Quarterly "

"The Elephants Teach" is an astonishing piece of work. . . . Under the author s magic it becomes the story of a great part of our culture since the turn of the century. from the Foreword by Jacques Barzun
--from the Foreword by Jacques Barzun"

Myers is thorough, his writing is clear, and the history he has to tell will be to most, if not all, current teachers of creative writing little short of a revelation. . . . This is a book all teachers of creative writing should read. History of Education Quarterly">
--Roger Mitchell "History of Education Quarterly ""

From the Back Cover:

The Elephants Teach is a captivating account of how creative writing has become an integral part of our culture since the last decades of the nineteenth century. A story of the American will-to-art, it also offers a comprehensive reinterpretation of the development of English as a field of study. D.G. Myers argues that English has been split into three rival and antagonist fields: composition, literary scholarship, and the constructive art of literature, which includes both creative writing and literary criticism. He traces this split from the earliest days of the discipline, when it was called philology, through the rise of English composition and the critical wars of the thirties, down to the present. Along the way, he tells how poets and writers turned to university teaching as a means of economic support, restoring a neglected chapter in the history of American authorship and literary education.

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