The aim of educational research is, it may be said, to illuminate issues in education. If literature (poetry, drama, the novel) is valuable because it illuminates all kinds of areas of human life, then it is difficult to see why the writing of a novel, play or poem on an educational theme should not count as educational research. There is a tendency for boundaries between different genres to become blurred in recent years (for instance between literature and philosophy) and for writers such as Rorty to emphasise that philosophy is one kind of writing among others, and not an especially privileged one. This paper will examine possible reasons for demarcating educational research from literary (and other artistic) treatments of education. It will argue that the demarcation rests on assumptions about research methodology, and on the presumed superiority of empirical research, that cannot survive examination.