Pen to Paper
Art | Ideas | History as Digital Ebooks
Three vital ways of thinking and living
The motto Art – Ideas – History forms the keynote of this website. The creative arts, literature and the history of ideas feed the life of the mind by linking the individual with the culture of the past. It is in this spirit that this website has been devised.
Peter Whitfield is a writer and independent publisher working under the imprint of Wychwood Editions. Over the past twenty years he has built up a series of thought-provoking books which are now being made available in digital ebook form via this website.
Some twenty books will be featured and new material, some of it free to view, will be added: this is a growing site. These books represent two decades of thought and research, and range over a wide field of literature, the history of ideas and the creative arts. Fundamental to his work is the encounter between the present and the past, and he sees the role of the writer as being to explore the life of the mind, to elucidate the forces which have shaped our civilisation. Many of these books criticise the spiritual impoverishment of contemporary life, while advancing the claims of ideals and values beyond materialism. The books fall into four categories: Literary Studies, Cultural History, Philosophy and Religion, while a further dimension is added by his range of books on cycling, which has been Whitfield’s lifelong hobby, and which represents the essential physical dimension which our lives demand, to balance the intellectual.
Literary Studies
The work of the poet, novelist or dramatist begins by taking elements of the real world in order to transcend that world, to re-imagine it. The writer’s instinct is to create a fiction which reveals some form of truth. Ultimately, creative literature springs from a refusal to accept the world as it is, and perhaps language as it is. It seeks to create counter-worlds, even counter-languages.
Cultural History
Cultural history examines and tries to interpret the leading ideas, beliefs and activities of human societies. Culture was formerly defined as solely the higher expressions of the mind – art, literature and learning, but now many other things are seen as culturally significant. But cultural history still tries to identify and evaluate the principal forces that shape our lives, and to understand what they are expressing.
Religion & Philosophy
Religion and Philosophy are both responses to the fundamental problems of human self-understanding. How and why do human beings possess reason, moral judgement and a sense of the spiritual? Why do we elevate ideals such as goodness, truth, beauty and justice? Is mankind subject to external laws imposed by some higher power. Has mankind a unique role to play within nature or even the cosmos? These are questions that never go away.
Cycling & Cycle Sport
Cycling is a therapeutic activity which washes the dust of the everyday routine from our lives. It takes us out into the landscape and clean air. It refreshes the body and calms the mind, just as yoga does. Cycle-Sport takes cycling to extreme levels of strength and achievement, and its history records great feats of amateur athleticism, which deserve to be remembered in the very different sporting world of today.