This article takes as its focus Lefebvre's trialectic of conceived, perceived and lived spaces as a lens through which to scrutinise the 2013 English Literature Curriculum, and to explore the extent to which creative spaces might exist within that curriculum. The article analyses how the curriculum is envisaged by policymakers and how it might be expected to be translated into practice, utilising the wording of the policy document to facilitate an exploration of what its underlying intentions might be. The author's experience of teaching a poem from the new curriculum is used in order to provide illustrative examples of the ways in which teachers' and learners' experiences of the curriculum might, in practice, diverge from the direction envisaged by policymakers as teachers negotiate creative spaces within their classrooms.

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This article uses a theoretical framework of possible worlds to explore the ways in which Janice Galloway’s novel about grief and depression, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, may elicit emotional responses in readers. I give an overview of some of the emotional responses expressed by readers by using online review data, before employing stylistic analysis to demonstrate how emotional effects may be created through the linguistic construction of degrees of possibility. Drawing on Possible Worlds Theory, I demonstrate how readers’ emotional responses may be linked both to the presentation of possibility and to the restriction of possibility. The combination of the empirical methodology utilised here alongside stylistic analysis allows me to harness the capacity of possible worlds methodologies to cast light on constructions of textual possibility and actuality and to facilitate understanding of some of the mechanisms eliciting readers' emotions.

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