The Mind's Best Work

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Harvard University Press, 1981 - Psychology - 314 pages

Over the years, tales about the creative process have flourished-tales of sudden insight and superior intelligence and personal eccentricity. Coleridge claimed that he wrote "Kubla Khan" in one sitting after an opium-induced dream. Poe declared that his "Raven" was worked out "with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem."

D. N. Perkins discusses the creative episodes of Beethoven, Mozart, Picasso, and others in this exploration of the creative process in the arts, sciences, and everyday life.

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Contents

WITNESSES TO INVENTION
9
CREATIVE MOMENTS
41
WAYS OF THE MIND
74
CRITICAL MOMENTS
102
SEARCHING FOR
130
PLANS DOWN DEEP
162
PLANS UP FRONT
190
LIVES OF INQUIRY
220
HAVING IT
245
THE SHAPE OF MAKING
275
NOTES
293
SOURCES
301
INDEX
311
Copyright

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About the author (1981)

D.N. Perkins is Director of Harvard Project Zero, Senior Research Associate, and Lecturer On Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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