The Mediaeval Heavens Part 1
We’re so used to thinking of the physical universe as obeying certain ‘laws’ that we can get muddled about the idea of it.  A ‘law’...
'Eucatastrophe' in Stories
Consider the most powerful, memorable moments in your own reading. Think for a moment about the scenes in your favourite books or films...
Blake's Battle to Build 'Jerusalem'
’Jerusalem’, by William Blake, from the preface of ‘Milton a Poem’, first printed in 1804, was originally called ‘And Did Those Feet in...
Tolkien and 'Final Participation'
According to Owen Barfield, close friend of C. S. Lewis and a member of the Inklings group, as well as being an influence upon Tolkien,...
Owen Barfield and the Nature of 'Reality'
Owen Barfield, British philosopher and close friend of C. S. Lewis, said once that Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry , his...
Larkin's 'The Whitsun Weddings'
Poetry, like other forms of creative writing, is fiction, in the sense that it is ‘made up’: the poet puts words together not for any...
Lee, Kirby and the Cosmic Imagination
Between the end of the 1950s and 1970, a creative explosion took place in comics. As has been previously discussed, Stan Lee, becoming...
The Genius of the Poem ‘Kubla Khan’
It’s part of the legend of the composition of the poem ‘Kubla Khan’ that it arose out of drug-induced reverie. Poet Samuel Taylor...
7 Steps to Create a Good Detective Story
Detective stories are amongst the most popular genre of tale in the modern age, and it’s not hard to see why. Set in a recognisably...