Poetics of the representation of artistic talent in Benjamin Wood’s novel Seascraper

Abstract

The paper examines what poetic features contribute to the originality of the representation of artistic talent in Benjamin Wood’s novel Seascraper. The study is carried out through the combination of a number of analytic concepts comprising those of the narrative structure, intertextuality, conceptual metaphor, and parable. The findings demonstrate that Wood’s novel Seascraper presents a multifaceted image of artistic talent which is achieved via the combination of a range of poetic features including a multidimensional approach to the question of what it means to be artistically gifted, intertextual materialisation of a piece of the protagonist’s creative activity, and employment of the powerful metaphor of creative writing as bleeding.