Fiction, Intuition, and Creativity ― Studies in Bronte, James, Woolf, and Lessing

Fiction, Intuition, & Creativity is a search for the origins of fiction and for an understanding of how these origins influence the finished work of art. It examines the connection between the creative process and fictional form by discussing how intuitive consciousness provides the environment in which creativity flourishes and how writers make use of intuitive creativity in their novels.
Looking first at how the link between intuition and creativity has been explored in philosophy, psychology, and aesthetics by thinkers such as Henri Bergson, William James, Carl Jung, and Benedetto Croce, the book proceeds to an extended discussion of what novelists reveal about the workings of their creative processes, focusing on the intuitive dimension of aesthetic activity. This includes the role of the unconscious and of emotion, the need for an incubation period before the novel emerges into consciousness, and the sense that characters inhabit an autonomous realm and frequently operate beyond the control of their authors.
This unique work offers much for those interested in the structure and development of fiction, the subject of creativity and intuitive consciousness, or in the four authors analyzed at length in the text.

Angela Hague is Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University.