(In celebration of the literary imagination)
Kayode Taiwo Olla
The
mystery of the power of creativity in literature (and even in art and
music) will, I daresay, forever remain (at least, in part) an
inscrutable marvelous aspect of the arts to the judgment of the rational
mind. However, as John Keats (1795 – 1821), one of the greatest
proponents of English Romanticism which privileges emotion and
imagination over reason – as he wrote: ‘I am certain of nothing but the
holiness of the heart’s affections, and the truth of imagination’; I may
therefore presume with a methodological skeptical position, that
despite the inexplicable nature of the question of the creative impulse
in literature, the mind of man may still grasp or at least appreciate
the marvelous power of inspiration. I shall take an especial mention on
the Romantic poets in this essay; or in other sense, look on this
question using the Romantics as a case study, for in my own opinion,
Romantic imagination presents the best example of imaginative creativity
possible.
Irish novelist and songwriter Samuel Lover (1797 – 1868) said in Andy Anny: ‘When once the itch of literature comes over man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.’ Often times have creative writers been asked, ‘How did you write
this?’ My sincerest answer to questions like these when I am asked as
one (and, I could tell, are so many other literary writers’) is: ‘I
don’t know! Dear, I don’t know!’ Someone else may say, ‘Teach me how to write?’
But how could I best teach him/her that it cannot ‘be taught’? Now if
then this inspiration is in some way intrinsic, can man not comprehend
how it came by? Inspiration in literature – is it a marvelous working of
spiritus mundi (‘the human spirit’); or of a divine spirit, say a god or God?
To
aptly delineate the concept of inspiration in literature is too tedious
a task and the topic too controversial, to have a definite result. In
my own view, creative imagination naturally involves an awesome working
interplay of man’s high faculties, taking in the miraculous workings of perception (the senses), reception (the spiritus), conception (the mind) and artistic ability – and the height of the literariness
of the resultant work is left a function of the writer’s level of
competence and mastery through experience. However, with some extremists
inspiration sometimes transcends the workings of the body system into
an unanalyzable psychological or mystical realm.
The
following statement was attributed to U.S. rock singer and songwriter
Jim Morrison (1943 – 1971): ‘These first songs I wrote, I was just
taking notes at a fantastic rock theatre that was going on inside my
head.’ To analyze the processes of the inspiration, then, we must have
to, perhaps, take an empirical test of the electronic activities going
on in his head at the time! True, we can; possibly through such
medical-scientific processes as neuroimaging. Then perhaps, we might
only catch a glimpse into the inscrutable sublime of that ‘fantastic
rock theatre… inside my head’! On the other hand, Charles
Brown, a friend with whom John Keats was living when he composed his
poem ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, [only] had this to say about Keats’ own
composition of the ode:
In
the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house.
Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he
took his chair from the breakfast table to the grass-plot under a
plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the
house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he
was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those
scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feeling on the song
of our nightingale.
Thus,
the nightingale was an inspiration for the poem, I can safely say, and
by gazing at its nest Keats’ creative impulse flowed into writing; but
then, the process that went on in his head penning that impulse into
poetic lines, how can you comprehend? The natural environment thus
worked with the genius of the poet to produce the great ‘Ode to a
Nightingale’! At this point, I can safely designate his inspiration,
based on this discourse, as sheer working of the spiritus mundi,
as opposed to being aided in his fantasy by hemlock, alcohol or any
stimulating liquor, as did many poets in the Romantic era; for he
himself says – addressing the nightingale:
Away! Away! For I will fly to thee
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards
But on the viewless wings of poesy.
However,
extremists do go beyond to compose under the influence of mind-bending
substances such as drugs. P.B. Shelley (1792 – 1822), one of the leading
poets of Romanticism, did compose, at least, some of his poems under
the influence of such mind-bending substances as hemlock. The
disadvantageous effect of this on him is not a point to analyze here,
you know what drug addiction does! Now, in this case, I presume that a
psycho-neurotic approach will delineate or analyze the inspiration of
the psychedelic literature, art or music. The spiritus mundi here does not function in its normal state and the inspiration is not natural but hallucinatory.
Moreover,
ancient Greek poets believed that they were inspired by Muse, a goddess
of poetry. (Muses, nine, were the daughters of the god Zeus in Greek
mythology, each muse believed to preside over a particular art.) For instance, Homer’s great epic ILLIAD, that recounts the legend of the Trojan War, began thus:
‘Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles’ Peleus’ son, the ruinous war that brought on the Achaians woes innumerable….’
Now,
how realistic the Muse’s inspiration power by which the classical poets
claim to write was, might be argued by skeptics and even be discounted
by scientists. However, in my opinion, the poets actually created under
the powers of those spirits, whether termed mystical or real; for they
did worship and conjured such black powers. On the other hand,
Neoclassical poets who patterned their works after ancient Greek and
Roman Classism, did not necessarily imitate the worship of the classical
Muses, but did make reference to, pay homage to, or even conjured them.
William Shakespeare (1654 – 1616), for instance, makes mention on many
occasion as of being inspired by Muse in his love Sonnets. For instance, in ‘Sonnet LXXXV’:
My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compil’d,
Reserve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil’d.
Reserve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil’d.
Whether he only wanted to pattern his work after the Classics or he is actually
inspired by them, might be for some other critical analyst to search
out and probe. But I daresay he was merely imitating the tradition of
Classical literature, as did also many other Neoclassicists. William
Wordsworth (1770 – 1850), one of the most influential proponents of
English Romanticism and whose theories and style created the literary
tradition, did not only get inspiration from nature but sees Nature as
god, whereas Keats, his contemporary, did not subscribe to this
doctrine.
However,
John Milton (1608 – 1674), a contemporary of Shakespeare, in his poem
‘On the Incarnation Morning’, celebrating the Virgin birth of Christ,
prays to the Holy Spirit of God and asks this ‘Heavenly Muse’ to give
him lines for this Holy God born on this Christmas morning. He chose to
call, or have, the Holy Spirit as his ‘Muse’.
Ergo,
my summation is: every good literary writer in literature must have got
at least some little measure of an intrinsic capability of literary
imagination; two, each literary writer chooses
what inspiration flows through him/her or what spirit he/she allows to
rule his/her creative mind. And as literary writer myself, this is my
submission: ‘There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty gives [me] understanding’ (The Bible, Job 32: 8) – for I can only speak for myself!
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