Living the literary life?

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Exactly... If you read the history of Duchamp... and especially his Fountain... you will find that it was all intended as part of a grandiose joke upon the art world.

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Well you know, I never had this confirmed, it just seemed to me so obvious. Duchamp is one of the characters I respect the most.

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Certainly the urinal was never intended to be actually seen as an art object. Perhaps the best critique of the iconic status of this work was the "artist" who peed in it, declaring that it was his intention to reduce the work to its original purpose.

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That's great :lol: Typically Duchampesque too.

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Unfortunately, the ideas of conceptual art can be quite seductive... and far easier to master than the skills needed to paint well.

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Well I do get what you mean, but let me add something here. It's that I don't think conceptual art is (should be) easier to master, in fact, I think it is (or should be) harder, as one should be able to paint well in order to create great conceptual art. What's easier is to fake or give the illusion of great art by playing on the ignorance of the public and it's will to appear sophisticated, or simply living in the illusion of doing great art, because of the general example. I do think that art today ought to be something else than what can be done through photographic means, for example, and in this respect a degree of conceptualism is needed, but as a mean to extend boundaries, and not to reduce art to "mere" conceptualism.

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Originally Posted by _Shannon_

Is the literary life the one where you write absolutely nothing because there are a million children around vying for your attention and your creativity is channeled into creating and growing babies and your hands are perpetually covered in dish soap, or laundry soap, or bubble bath...and the closest you ever get to writing is making a tablet to practicing the alphabet or a list of spelling words?? And yet in your heart of hearts you think still, somewhere, you are a writer...if only you had words....and time...and quiet....and not being needed....

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I have both, passed this stage, in that my bylines in recent years have left me with no doubt that I am capable of penetrating markets that I care to penetrate, and regressed back to it, in the sense that my plumbing no longer works (raises hand and says to medical science I will take that regenerated pig bladder thank you, and can we throw in a new colon while we're at it? This actually used to be the basis for some dramatic science fiction I loved to read, remarkable) and I am no more now than a hag-nanny, like Macbeth's witches, not quite female anymore. How do old women with increasingly brittle gray hair and a spinster's cocoon slowly enveloping, still live for the work itself? Should I ask Toni Morrison? Listening to her or reading her anymore I find tiresome, and only care vigorously for her *daddy* novel, Song of Solomon, and The Bluest Eye, which she wrote, in an afterword, "didn't work". I got her gist on that. The POV she tries with this horror story doesn't achieve what she attempts, but by Christ what a hard hitting brilliant failure this work is. Is that damning praise? When I read Beloved I thought it was time for her to retire, phew!

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Or is the literary life the one where your home is girded with books, and you met your spouse working at the bookstore where he still works, where everyone who ever gets a gift from you knows that they'll be getting a book. The one where when your gaggle stumbles into the Waffle House all but the smallest have books in hand...the one where several of the people in your home regularly stay up far too late reading or listening to stories???

LOL! Then yes--we, I, live a very literary life!

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Sounds like a worthy essay on the matter of literary living!:p:thumbs_up

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Originally Posted by Etienne

It's that I don't think conceptual art is (should be) easier to master, in fact, I think it is (or should be) harder, as one should be able to paint well in order to create great conceptual art.

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Yes! Like to dance good modern ballet you have to master classical ballet.

Stlukesguild, it's rather reassuring to hear a specialist saying that contemporary art isn't that interesting. Because, as Etienne says, there's always that wish to appear sophisticated and therefore to shut up when you think you're viewing crap, and not at all great art. I've recently started to air my real thoughts, when I go to see a show that obviously takes its public for a bunch of fools, but it's hard not to go with the stream. And there's always a risk that you've really misunderstood the artist.

And the problem is that almost all novel forms of art were denigrated by the public when they first appeared (I read a book about Impressionism, recently, and the comments of the exhibition-goers!!), so one wonders whether one is not making the same mistake... I wonder what will be said about Jeff Koons in fifty years' time...

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Originally Posted by Etienne

Well I do get what you mean, but let me add something here. It's that I don't think conceptual art is (should be) easier to master, in fact, I think it is (or should be) harder, as one should be able to paint well in order to create great conceptual art. What's easier is to fake or give the illusion of great art by playing on the ignorance of the public and it's will to appear sophisticated, or simply living in the illusion of doing great art, because of the general example. I do think that art today ought to be something else than what can be done through photographic means, for example, and in this respect a degree of conceptualism is needed, but as a mean to extend boundaries, and not to reduce art to "mere" conceptualism.

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I have been trying to stay out of this, because my art appreciation these days extends about as far as finding Simon Schama's public tutorials sexually attractive, but I cannot damn photography as an entirely technical process with no artistic merit, if I understand your objection, although I might seriously hedge on the issue of computer animation and graphics. I am more accessible to pink sharks suspended in tanks and glittering madonna's partly sculpted in elephant dung than luke or bitterfly or you might be. Crass commercial materialism can teach as much as neo-classical reverence does, in my book. Like anything else, the mess will sort itself out, and when the smoke clears what's left standing will command respect. The literary world is not immune to this. One has to ask if Acker's joke (that she plagiarized and considered this worthy conceptually before her cancer metastasized her and any subsequent output as an issue:eek:, although she did lose in court against Faulkner's estate, while she was sick), is worthy on its on merits. I don't know. She does dollop out degradation nearly as well as any inner city drug dealer.

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Originally Posted by Etienne

The problem with this, is what accounts for the interest of the ready-made art of Duchamp, for example, and most of what followed from it. Duchamp presented a Fountain. Great, new idea, funny, shocking. Now tomorrow, I present a different Fountain as a piece of art. That's just boring, there's no shock anymore. That's just the problem with the ready-made art, it's that the art was the idea. All subsequent ready-made art attempt are simply presenting the same work over and over, even though it might be something else than the Fountain, it doesn't matter.

So besides the exception, most of what is made is this view becomes in fact, an attempt to provoke watchers into boringness and is almost an exercise to try to be impressed, entertained, or shocked. A lot of it is insipid and boring. It's telling the same joke twice.

(...)

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I don't know ... What's a fountain in your time? This fountain you portray, will it last, within 50, 100 years? Will there be fountains within this period of time? (contemporary questions are onto ecology issues in a way ...)

If it does so you won't be alive to know anything about it, so, what's the difference, but: do you keep portraying things around you, no matter what the future will be?

Or do you care more to what critics say? Or about academic environment(s) opinions?

Do you write at all?

And you can write to someone, all right, or you can write to humanity, or to eternity ... You choose your public, and other people will like it or not but BLAST them! I choose my public!


:crash:

Well I do get what you mean, but let me add something here. It's that I don't think conceptual art is (should be) easier to master, in fact, I think it is (or should be) harder...

I agree that conceptual art done well is not easy to do. It demands a sensitivity to the materials and objects that the artist has chosen to recontextualize so that the result is not without a concern for aesthetics (or dare I say "beauty", and resonates with multiple layers of possible meaning. Among some truly fine works of conceptual art I would certainly include:

Meret Oppenheim's Object which plays with allusions to touch and taste and surreal intimations of sexuality:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...d/00043099.jpg

Man Ray's simple Violin d' Ingres:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...Ingres1924.jpg

Joseph Cornell's poetic shadow boxes... including the Magnificent De Medici Slot Machines:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...guild/dsm1.jpg

Ed Kienholtz' harrowing State Mental Hospital where goldfish bowls replace the face/minds of the inmates who can only imagine (as in the neon dream bubble) more of the same:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...spital_int.jpg

The reality is that much of the finest "conceptual art" is created by artists utilizing craft skills outside of the usual drawing/painting/sculpture/print experience. In a manner these artists bring to the art world that outside influence of which JBI has spoken as being necessary to infuse an old tradition with new energy. Martin Puryear, an African-American sculptor living in rural Pennsylvania studied with master woodworkers and furniture craftsmen in Scandinavia before bringing these sensibilities to the non-utilitarian world of art:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ld/image27.jpg

Ron Meuck built upon the skills he mastered in creating special effects for the film industry using modern polymers, latex, foam, etc... in creating his unsettling hyperrealist sculptures:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...JY-aIOLSX6.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ffuSZN2Zmi.jpg

Still other artists, dating back to Richard Smithson's Spiral Jetty have utilized only natural materials creating works that remain in nature and that eventually will erode:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ild/IMG091.jpg

Perhaps the most interesting contemporary earth artist is Andy Goldsworthy... whose work has an almost Japanese Zen quality to it:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...oldsworthy.jpg

All of his works are created on the spot and left to the elements... sometimes lasting but a few moments. Only the photographic records remain:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...d_treesoul.jpg

In a variation on earth art there is Richard Greaves' "anarchitecture"... buildings constructed of materials claimed from collapsed homes... put together without the use of any nails, screws or other artificial means they are essentially a version of a house of cards:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...thingsmall.jpg

Even the book has become a source of conceptual art... scribbling and doodling in these instances:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...eframed123.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...x-noxiouss.jpg

What's easier is to fake or give the illusion of great art by playing on the ignorance of the public and it's will to appear sophisticated, or simply living in the illusion of doing great art, because of the general example.

Bitterfly- Stlukesguild, it's rather reassuring to hear a specialist saying that contemporary art isn't that interesting. Because, as Etienne says, there's always that wish to appear sophisticated and therefore to shut up when you think you're viewing crap, and not at all great art. I've recently started to air my real thoughts, when I go to see a show that obviously takes its public for a bunch of fools, but it's hard not to go with the stream. And there's always a risk that you've really misunderstood the artist.

While I largely bristle at the use of the old analogy to the "Emperor's New Clothes"... which is largely thrown out by those without the least understanding or appreciation of art post-Impressionism... there is something of that involved today. There is a gross amount of money invested in the arts... but the pool of what is available has continually shrunk. Even Bill Gates... with all the wealth he has at hand... could not possibly build an art collection to rival the Frick Museum (for example). There are simply not that many masterful works by old masters still in private hands. For this reason prices of Impressionism and Modernism and even contemporary art have spiraled beyond all reason. As any artist knows... in most cases the production of art is a slow... deliberate process. Large paintings by Rubens or Velasquez often demanded months of labor. Vermeer created all of 40 paintings in his life. Rembrandt may have painted as many as 400. Dealers now want artist who can turn out 50 or 100 new large works a year... thus fueling demand. Very few critics are going to come out and tell you how bad much of the work is... not when their salaries come from the advertising dollars paid by the dealers to the very publications for which they are employed. The few exceptions, such as Robert Hughes and Donald Kuspit generally write for magazines not dependent upon gallery support (Time, Newsweek), newspapers, and/or are employed through universities.

I do think that art today ought to be something else than what can be done through photographic means, for example, and in this respect a degree of conceptualism is needed, but as a mean to extend boundaries, and not to reduce art to "mere" conceptualism.

Yes... I agree there should be a place for everything. But then my initial comments were about the manner in which many of the supporters of conceptual art would not have it that way. Sean Scully, one of the leading contemporary abstract painters, admitted that he once thought that such art could co-exist peacefully... but now he states that for the artist it has become an either/or position.

JoZ- I am more accessible to pink sharks suspended in tanks and glittering madonna's partly sculpted in elephant dung than luke or bitterfly or you might be. Crass commercial materialism can teach as much as neo-classical reverence does, in my book.

JoZ... believe it or not I am far less conservative as an artist than you might suppose. However, I have no place for Hirst's shark suspended in formaldehyde (all graciously funded by Charles Saatchi) nor Chris Ofili's Sh** Madonna and Sh** Christ... Las Vegas sequins mounted on giant elephant turds and passed off as conveying some deep spiritual meaning. If I wish to learn from crass commercialism I have no lack of access to the internet, Hollywood, billboards, TV, etc... Fine artists who attempt to take on popular culture at its own game are simply ridiculous. They remain popular, however, because we have endless millionaires and even billionaires who made their money in real estate, oil, junk bonds, or the tech industry... but know nothing about art. They do know, however, that they loved Scooby Doo and Batman when they were kids.

I loved Meret Oppenheim's Object, had never seen that one. I remember that Violin d'Ingres, as one of my friend who is a violonist wanted such a tattoo on her back too. I love Ron Mueck too, his sculptures are simply incredible. Besides I've been introduced to Andy Goldsworthy's work recently, this one striked me very much:
http://www.monkeysvsrobots.com/mvsrp...ndy_sticks.jpg

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The reality is that much of the finest "conceptual art" is created by artists utilizing craft skills outside of the usual drawing/painting/sculpture/print experience.

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Yes, of course, but the point is that the medium is of no importance to the fact that an artist needs the traditional skills of this medium before being able to create great art with this medium.

is there conceptualism in literature?
this seems to be going into visual arts ...

no doubt the arts walk together, but . . .


There are many arts. Are all arts part of theatre ( / cinema)? Once I thought this, because to theatre you need writing, painting and music.

Writing, portraying and music are very different from each other.

The lives of a writer, of a portrayer, and of a musician are completely different from each other.

A writer fights against being famous. A portrayer doesn't seem to care about it. A musician only cares about living, and working all right! (I wish I were a musician ... I believe they're the happiest! I can hardly play a mandolin, and doubt I'll ever do any art out of it! ...)

Anyway, the subject was "Living the literary life".

What's this anyway? Living like a writer? Living like an artist? Talking about art in general, and having opinion on it? ... I have to say that the thread attracts me, but that I'm kind of confused! ...


:crash:

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Originally Posted by librarius_qui

is there conceptualism in literature?
this seems to be going into visual arts ...

no doubt the arts walk together, but . . .


There are many arts. Are all arts part of theatre ( / cinema)? Once I thought this, because to theatre you need writing, painting and music.

Writing, portraying and music are very different from each other.

The lives of a writer, of a portrayer, and of a musician are completely different from each other.

A writer fights against being famous. A portrayer doesn't seem to care about it. A musician only cares about living, and working all right! (I wish I were a musician ... I believe they're the happiest! I can hardly play a mandolin, and doubt I'll ever do any art out of it! ...)

Anyway, the subject was "Living the literary life".

What's this anyway? Living like a writer? Living like an artist? Talking about art in general, and having opinion on it? ... I have to say that the thread attracts me, but that I'm kind of confused! ...


:crash:

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Some avant gaurde poetry borders on conceptualization, though none is really taken seriously. Though, some wacky things are coming out in recent times - things might get a little weird.

I think quite often the lines between writer/artist/musician are blurred because they are not as far apart as they may seem. Rousseau began as a composer; E.T.A. Hoffmann started as a painter, a semi-successful composer (he still has a few pieces that are considered a minor part of the classical repertory). Eugenio Montale (who we are reading in the Poetry Group) began as a composer and singer; Theophile Gautier began as a painter. William Blake and Dante Rossetti are both admired equally as poets and visual artists... and this barely touches upon a few examples. The Japanese and Chines ideal was of the poet/painter/calligrapher. I think beyond the fact that many artists have tried their hand at one or more forms (music, poetry, painting, theater) they are quite often sensitive to other art forms... greatly enamored of other art forms... and at times directly influenced or inspired by other art forms. Degas loved the ballet, the opera, and the cabarets. The Abstract Expressionists were fueled on jazz (and alcohol). Rilke had Rodin. Rimsky-Korsakov had the Arabian Nights (Scheherazade), etc...

Personally, living the "literary life" for me means continually being surrounded by an ever-growing library (now some 3000+ books). It means that I can admit, to paraphrase J.L. Borges, that few things have happened to me and I have read a great many... or rather few things have happened to me more worth remembering than the music of England's words. It means that books have always been a central part of who I am... even as an artist. That many of the visual artists who have inspired me and continue to do so can be found in books. It means that William Blake, and the Book of Kells, and the Lindesfarne Gospels, and the Shah Nameh of Tabriz, and the Kelmscott Chaucer, and the Book of Durrow, and the Paris Psalter, and illuminated books of Koetsu and Sotasu, and the ukiyo-e prints and books of Utamaro and Hokusai are just as important to me as an artist as Rembrandt and Titian.

Certainly, there are differences. The average visual artist, for example, must have a certain degree of manual dexterity and is commonly involved in the heaviest manual labor. Contrary to the image of the effete artist, most of them are quite solid carpenters and laborers. Their art demands as much. For the most part, the visual artist is like the writer in preferring to work in solitude. This may be true of the composer as well... but the musician and the other members of the performing arts must commonly thrive upon an audience. I think that the question may not have gone far because we imagine that "living the literary life" (or the artistic life) rarely fits some stereotype. It means something different and is experienced differently by each individual writer/book lover.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Some avant gaurde poetry borders on conceptualization, though none is really taken seriously. Though, some wacky things are coming out in recent times - things might get a little weird.

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Ah, yeah, you're right ... There is weird thing in poetry! I almost always forget this (as well) weird part of literature, haha!

(Kidding. At least in a way.)

I mean, all the poems I write (that I consider) are part of narrative, and narrative themselves.

But I'm straying here.

So, what about the life of a poet. Does a poet live of what he does, or is he a common office worker like me? Or a poet during the days of college only, and after that, buries his art, "forever more"? ... (Or do they all die too young for being noted before that happened?)


:crash:

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Originally Posted by librarius_qui

Ah, yeah, you're right ... There is weird thing in poetry! I almost always forget this (as well) weird part of literature, haha!

(Kidding. At least in a way.)

I mean, all the poems I write (that I consider) are part of narrative, and narrative themselves.

But I'm straying here.

So, what about the life of a poet. Does a poet live of what he does, or is he a common office worker like me? Or a poet during the days of college only, and after that, buries his art, "forever more"? ... (Or do they all die too young for being noted before that happened?)


:crash:

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Who knows, many writers boarder on something in between prose and verse. Anne Carson, who I think must've been fueled by Sheila Watson (who pretty much created the concept of verse-novel in Canadian literature) would probably be the prime example. Though, Watson's Double hook is worth checking out - it is certainly authentic.

The point is though, Prose is always trying to match poetry, because it is, in the contemporary sense, merely corseted poetry. The power of literature is in the manipulation of the word, and if you write prose, your abilities are somewhat limited.

Though actually, there is a movement in post-modern poetry to mix verses with visual images.Some even have gone so far as to mix poetry with cinema, though I can't think of a very interesting example - I know, for instance, the American poet Thylias Moss has gone down that road, though, I would say her older stuff is far more interesting.

I guess though, when it comes down to it, grafting forms is certainly a good idea, and it's strange that very few people do it, though the reason is pretty easy to see. To master one art form is unbelievably difficult, yet to master two is far harder.

Still, it would be interesting to see someone build off of the graphic novel, and create something in a more literary vein. The concept is interesting, but most just read like thick comic books. I think the problem is the artists make sure the text matches the images, and is contained within the image, rather than letting the text and image conflict, or contradict, or even not be formed as speech.

Even, for instance, poetry backed by abstract art could be very interesting. But I guess such a thing would be impossible - with the poetry markets like they are, I think selling a book with colored pictures would be impossible. The printing of the books would be far more than the price people would be willing to spend anyway.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I think quite often the lines between writer/artist/musician are blurred because they are not as far apart as they may seem. Rousseau began as a composer; E.T.A. Hoffmann started as a painter, a semi-successful composer (he still has a few pieces that are considered a minor part of the classical repertory). Eugenio Montale (who we are reading in the Poetry Group) began as a composer and singer; Theophile Gautier began as a painter. William Blake and Dante Rossetti are both admired equally as poets and visual artists... and this barely touches upon a few examples. The Japanese and Chines ideal was of the poet/painter/calligrapher. I think beyond the fact that many artists have tried their hand at one or more forms (music, poetry, painting, theater) they are quite often sensitive to other art forms... greatly enamored of other art forms... and at times directly influenced or inspired by other art forms. Degas loved the ballet, the opera, and the cabarets. The Abstract Expressionists were fueled on jazz (and alcohol). Rilke had Rodin. Rimsky-Korsakov had the Arabian Nights (Scheherazade), etc...

Personally, living the "literary life" for me means continually being surrounded by an ever-growing library (now some 3000+ books). It means that I can admit, to paraphrase J.L. Borges, that few things have happened to me and I have read a great many... or rather few things have happened to me more worth remembering than the music of England's words. It means that books have always been a central part of who I am... even as an artist. That many of the visual artists who have inspired me and continue to do so can be found in books. It means that William Blake, and the Book of Kells, and the Lindesfarne Gospels, and the Shah Nameh of Tabriz, and the Kelmscott Chaucer, and the Book of Durrow, and the Paris Psalter, and illuminated books of Koetsu and Sotasu, and the ukiyo-e prints and books of Utamaro and Hokusai are just as important to me as an artist as Rembrandt and Titian.

Certainly, there are differences. The average visual artist, for example, must have a certain degree of manual dexterity and is commonly involved in the heaviest manual labor. Contrary to the image of the effete artist, most of them are quite solid carpenters and laborers. Their art demands as much. For the most part, the visual artist is like the writer in preferring to work in solitude. This may be true of the composer as well... but the musician and the other members of the performing arts must commonly thrive upon an audience. I think that the question may not have gone far because we imagine that "living the literary life" (or the artistic life) rarely fits some stereotype. It means something different and is experienced differently by each individual writer/book lover.

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Even so, 'Guild ...


-x-


And there's one other thing to be considered: there are artists who come from rich backgrounds, and artists who come from poor backgrounds. Both life origins make artists. V. VanGogh, for instance ... I'd hate to have a life like his!

Among the few people who consider themselves artists, even fewer have a 3000-book library ... Or wish to.

I don't think an artist is a bibliophile necessarily, although I agree with you that artists search and experiment on neighbour arts (writers go to music and to painting and sculpture, painters go to books -- of course! -- and to music, musicians go to literature and to science (specially physics and astronomy!) ...). And a writer, particularly, there have one of two main interests: History or daily-life. (Or both.)

Only, History is very important to a writer, because it's speech, and because literature, in its way, tries to imitate reality (to some extent, or some sorts of it) and, in order to do so, it has to make historical sense. But I'm talking about literature.

Jorge Borges the Argentinian goes a lot into mythology ... It's a way of using History, I think. Of making his ground for coherence of some sort.

Poetry not always searches for coherence, but, many times, much more for breaking it. As well as the visual arts.

Jorge Borges was a bibliophile, I can say.

I like Rembrandt, but I think that all he read in his life was the bible. If ever. (Was he before the press or after, can't recall, by memory ...) (As well as I forget his first name ... Shame on me.) And he didn't wish, I think, to have a big library, but possibly a bigger studio.

I think I mistook VanGogh for Monet ... One of these two had a miserable life! Awgh!


:crash:

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Originally Posted by JBI

The point is though, Prose is always trying to match poetry, because it is, in the contemporary sense, merely corseted poetry. The power of literature is in the manipulation of the word, and if you write prose, your abilities are somewhat limited.

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You can't make prose into some kind of frustrated poetry, even if the expression you use is very pretty! I suspect that you too often forget the importance of imagination in art: words are undeniably important in order to create an imaginative world, but so are narratives. And some prose is more concerned with telling a story, simply, or thinking- something that can be done, but in my opinion with less success, in verse. I agree that some writers are on the threshold (Lawrence, for instance) for others are prose artists through and through.

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I guess though, when it comes down to it, grafting forms is certainly a good idea, and it's strange that very few people do it, though the reason is pretty easy to see. To master one art form is unbelievably difficult, yet to master two is far harder.

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I'd say that opera is already a good hybrid form: music, dance, visual arts, and literature (even if the lyrics are often quite uninteresting). Didn't Wagner dream of "total art"?

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Originally Posted by librarius_qui

So, what about the life of a poet. Does a poet live of what he does, or is he a common office worker like me? Or a poet during the days of college only, and after that, buries his art, "forever more"? ... (Or do they all die too young for being noted before that happened?)
:crash:

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Lots of poets had "ordinary lives": Larkin, a librarian; Mallarmé, an English teacher... Makes one dream!

By the way, Stlukesguild, I knew and love quite a few of the examples you provided for us. Not all conceptual art is bad, of course, and as you said, the emperor's clothes tale is not always relevant. I like contemporary art that touches me, in which I can find beauty. But when I come across works that only prick my curiosity (as it happened in the Guggenheim Museum, for instance, with big tubes, I think, at the entrance), I'm a bit more sceptical. I suppose I'm still attached to a certain transcendance, maybe? I expect art to lead the way to something I could never have imagined myself, something higher than myself.

Coming back to the original post, you can forget about laying about drinking absinthe and take a look at what real artistic endeavour requires from a writer. The following is my translation ( for what it is worth ) of a passage from `Schwere Stunde` (Difficult Hour) by Thomas Mann. The short story describes a late night hour when Schiller cannot sleep because he has a mental block in finishing his play Don Carlos.

He stood by the stove and blinked with painfully tired eyes over to his work, from which he had fled, this burden, this pressure, this torment of conscience, this fearful task that was his pride and his misery, his heaven and his damnation. It dragged itself, it marked time, it stood still again and again. The weather was to blame and his illness and his tiredness. Or was it the work itself? A joyless prison consecrated to doubt.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

Coming back to the original post, you can forget about laying about drinking absinthe and take a look at what real artistic endeavour requires from a writer. The following is my translation ( for what it is worth ) of a passage from `Schwere Stunde` (Difficult Hour) by Thomas Mann. The short story describes a late night hour when Schiller cannot sleep because he has a mental block in finishing his play Don Carlos.

He stood by the stove and blinked with painfully tired eyes over to his work, from which he had fled, this burden, this pressure, this torment of conscience, this fearful task that was his pride and his misery, his heaven and his damnation. It dragged itself, it marked time, it stood still again and again. The weather was to blame and his illness and his tiredness. Or was it the work itself? A joyless prison consecrated to doubt.

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No, if the literary life doesn't involve laying around, sipping absinthe with artist friends, debating the literary merits of some obscure Greek poet or pondering the value of postmodernist expressionism; then I'm out. Or I'm with Keats with the whole "if it doesn't come then it shouldn't come at all" sort of thing.

I know the reality is the real, the tiredness, the misery, but I prefer the unreality of imaginary bliss, I prefer the untrue, true, literary life.

(As I sit here trawling through Moll Flanders with a pen in one hand and a cheap glass of French red in the other, with a head fresh of insults received from the day job in the school - divine I’m sure.):)

Among the few people who consider themselves artists, even fewer have a 3000-book library ... Or wish to.

Yes... 3000 is quite sizable... even for a writer... I will admit. But not as rare as you may imagine... at least not in this day of inexpensive books. Of my 3000 books nearly a third (perhaps a quarter) are actually accounted for by art books: monographs, art history surveys, art criticism, technical manuals, museum and gallery exhibition catalogs, etc... Such is most certainly not uncommon with most of the artists I know. I might also add... there is a painting by the American painter R.B. Kitaj entitled Unpacking My Books that has always made me laugh. As an incurable (and successful) bibliophile Kitaj accumulated a sizable library... one in which he often found himself rediscovering forgotten books only as a result of needing to pack and un-pack his library when moving. Having moved some 7 or 8 times since college this is an experience I am more than familiar with.

I don't think an artist is a bibliophile necessarily, although I agree with you that artists search and experiment on neighbour arts (writers go to music and to painting and sculpture, painters go to books -- of course! -- and to music, musicians go to literature and to science (especially physics and astronomy!) ...)...

I certainly agree. I would be hard-put to suggest that there is anything that is an absolute necessity for the artist/poet/composer/dramatist. How well read was Bach? How versed in painting was Mozart? How experienced in music was Goya? Indeed... one would not need to look that hard to find writers, or artists, or composers that were in no way experts in their own field. The scholar and the artist are not necessarily one and the same. But perhaps that points a bit toward my own ideals as the what it means to be an artist. I have long admired the Renaissance ideal of the artist/scholar that often was educated in a broad array of the arts: Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Alberti, Leonardo, etc...

I like Rembrandt, but I think that all he read in his life was the Bible. If ever.

You may be right. It certainly was the most important book... at least as far as can be seen in his art. But is reality he was quite successful early on... until the death of his first wife... and he certainly had the wherewithal to afford more books.

Was he before the press or after, can't recall, by memory ...

Well after... 1600s.

As well as I forget his first name ... Shame on me...

Rembrandt was his first name... the rest of his name was Harmenzoen van Rijn

And he didn't wish, I think, to have a big library, but possibly a bigger studio.

Perhaps... but if he were a bibliophile he might have preferred the bigger library to the bigger home/studio. I can spend far more on my library because I spend far less upon my cars.

Still, it would be interesting to see someone build off of the graphic novel, and create something in a more literary vein. The concept is interesting, but most just read like thick comic books. I think the problem is the artists make sure the text matches the images, and is contained within the image, rather than letting the text and image conflict, or contradict, or even not be formed as speech.

Certainly the graphic novel has potential. The strongest work to now has largely been satire... R.Crumb is perhaps the strongest... coming off as "the Breughel of our time," as Robert Hughes put it.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/...fc68f24e_o.jpg

Among the "serious graphic novels" one immediately thinks of Art Spiegelman's Maus

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3029/...00674f9a_o.gif

And Ben Katchor's work:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3191/...6a4bb92f_o.jpg

Most of the rest often seems to strike me as far stronger in terms of imagery... quite often cinemagraphic... than as literature:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3249/...66b89283_o.jpg

This is as true of much of the Japanese anime:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3195/...aeae5006_o.jpg

Even, for instance, poetry backed by abstract art could be very interesting. But I guess such a thing would be impossible -

Actually such work is not only possible... but quite common. But you are of course speaking of highly limited editions for the most part: livre d'artist or "artist's books". Such highly prized books have been produced by Picasso, Matisse, Miro... and continue to be produced today. Earlier such works would include the books of Blake and William Morris' Kelmscott Chaucer.

Some exemplary examples might include Robert Motherwell's illuminations for Federico Garcia Lorca's Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (fold-out page)

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...egyPrintsm.jpg

Marc Chagall's Arabian Nights

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...agsigned48.jpg

Leonard Baskin's Auguries of Innocence

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...d/auguries.gif

Justin Quinn's Moby Dick:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...uild/05_58.jpg

Kenneth Patchen's Painted Poems:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ild/kpc07b.jpg

Tom Philip's Humument:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...d/h345a500.jpg

Michael Mazur's Dante:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ild/Cant01.jpg

...with the poetry markets like they are, I think selling a book with colored pictures would be impossible. The printing of the books would be far more than the price people would be willing to spend anyway.

You are naturally assuming that such an art would need to market itself at the mass audience, when in reality it would be and is geared toward a more "elite" (in this case "wealthy") audience. The "original" of each of these books would sell like an "original painting". Taking the livre d'artist to the next logical step, we return to what is essentially the illuminated manuscript... or the hand-made, one-of-a-kind book. The unique artist's books are in no way uncommon today... and in actuality are making a great come-back as visual artist's explore the possibilities beyond the traditional painting/drawing/sculpting:

Ronald Chase: Book of Hours
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ld/title-1.jpg

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Still, it would be interesting to see someone build off of the graphic novel, and create something in a more literary vein. The concept is interesting, but most just read like thick comic books. I think the problem is the artists make sure the text matches the images, and is contained within the image, rather than letting the text and image conflict, or contradict, or even not be formed as speech.

Certainly the graphic novel has potential. The strongest work to now has largely been satire... R.Crumb is perhaps the strongest... coming off as "the Breughel of our time," as Robert Hughes put it.

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There are lots of what you call graphic novels coming out of France and Belgium. Even if they are called comic strips, some of them have undeniable artistic value - I'm thinking about the works of people such as Enki Bilal, or Loisel, or Johann Sfar (The rabbi's cat is excellent!), or Lewis Trondheim. Some are them are satirical, but others are incredibly poetic. Then you have lots who have taken the storyplots of great classics (Remembrance of things past, Don Quichotte, Peter Pan...) and sometimes those works are a success. I think comic strips here have nothing to do with what you call "comics" in the US (and possibly in Canada).

What does this have to do with anything? Many of the images posted seem as oportunistic to me as any commercialism luke decries, and perhaps that deserves its on thread, the commercial predation of artistic concept, but it is not on topic, to the degree that those of you debating it aren't referencing the topic.

JoZ... The OP questioned us as to how or what we imagined living "the literary life" would be like. Some threw out some comments upon the stereotypes. I threw out my thoughts as to what leading "the literary life" meant to me as someone who is not a writer (but an artist)... but deeply enamored of books. I also threw out my notions of what living "the artist's life" meant. From this point we went through several digressions... discussions of beauty and Modernism... discussions of the differences... and the links between the arts. LitNet is a dialog and like many dialogs it meanders away from the original question of topic if not continually pushed back by moderators or the original poster. I believe a good many postings here do directly address the OP as to what living "the literary life" means to the respondent. Obviously we are, as a group, comprised of individuals with a wide array of interests and aspirations brought together by a single common love of books. What "living the literary life" means to us as a group may never result in any sort of consensus because of this broad array of personalities and personal goals. Anyway... sorry if you feel hijacked.:redface::blush::wave:

[QUOTE=Neely;640805]

I know the reality is the real, the tiredness, the misery, but I prefer the unreality of imaginary bliss, I prefer the untrue, true, literary life.


And that`s before you`ve started on the absinthe!

I know the reality is the real, the tiredness, the misery, but I prefer the unreality of imaginary bliss, I prefer the untrue, true, literary life.


And that`s before you`ve started on the absinthe!

Ha, ha - yes I am a screwed up individual - sometimes I talk such rubbish that even I don't know what I am saying!

Back to the topic I always think that in order to live the true literary life (or the untrue, true literary life) a person has to be totally financially independent, someone who does not need to work to earn a living. Such people as artists or writers are able to live outside of the social system in some way and are allotted, therefore, some form of true individuality. I'm thinking of particular of the poets who had patrons as in Wordsworth and Coleridge or those of their own means like Byron and Shelley. It would have been very difficult for these people to write how they did if they had to contend with 50/60 hours labour a week at their particular time of living, in the harsh times of early 19th C Britain.

I am not saying that you can't be an artist with a day job, but it is a damn sight easier if you don't have to. I would also suggest that the pure artist is one who doesn't have to conform to any particular audience or public, the true artist produces for him/herself alone and is able to create what the hell they want free from outside influence.

All of this is just the stuff of "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" I suppose, Wilde again in most ways. Wilde was a fan of absinthe too of course. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neely

I am not saying that you can't be an artist with a day job, but it is a damn sight easier if you don't have to. I would also suggest that the pure artist is one who doesn't have to conform to any particular audience or public, the true artist produces for him/herself alone and is able to create what the hell they want free from outside influence.

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This point might be interesting to examine Neely, because it may be commonly held but not really true for writers, though Henry James and rare lucky people like Rowling are exceptions--but even in James's case, his wealth did not entirely support him in his youth. He functioned as something of a reporter and gossip columnist in England, at least til Daisy Miller became an international hit. Kafka was an insurance adjuster, and by all accounts, a good one. Faulkner and dear Fitzgerald became Hollywood script writers, which places much different demands on authors. I did serious time in social services, and produced more then, and even more as a contract reporter, than I am capable of now, and it is not writer's block holding me back today so much as major disruptions and health, at least for the time being. Most writers do hold jobs, and rarely hit the JK Rowling jackpot.

I am not an expert on the classical era, but even back then, patronage was dicey. Ovid was exiled from Rome, and it devastated the poet.

It is only natural that the vast majority of writers/artists have had to work in some way, either by selling the work or by some other means in their life – even Shakespeare had to write for an audience of course.

What I see as the purest form of artistic creation though is the ability to exist totally free from the constraints of the system. I think the wonders we have in the world, in terms of art, are here despite of the obstacles of the everyday, not because of it.

What I see as the purest form of artistic creation though is the ability to exist totally free from the constraints of the system. I think the wonders we have in the world, in terms of art, are here despite of the obstacles of the everyday, not because of it.

There is the ideal... and there is reality. In my ideal artist's life my artwork would sell for such a high price that I might freely spend my entire days doing nothing but create art. In many ways... at least for the visual artist... this was the norm prior to the intervention of the gallery system. But with each possible life lived by the artist it would seem there come differing problems. The ideal of which you speak... being wealthy enough to be completely free from any constraints... would seem to have been realized by a scant few: Sir Walter Raleigh, Edward Spenser... but then again... their larger life as political figures surely "got in the way" of their writing. But what of the writer such as Dickens or even Stephen King whose writing is so successful? Did they have no restraints? Was there no pressure to continue writing at a certain speed, in a certain genre?

My initial "realistic ideal" was to have gone from art school to some elite graduate program to the fast-track for teaching art at the college/university level. Things did not pan out as planned. Reality intervened... and reality pointed out that the academic posts I was looking to were few and far between... lacked any of the sort of security I was seeking. And so I ended up teaching art to elementary (and now middle-school) students in some of the poorest and roughest neighborhoods in one of the poorest cities in the US. There are undoubted trade-offs. There are many days when the energy I must expend leaves me exhausted and in no way able to work in my studio. On the other hand... I am well off enough that not only do I not need to worry about where the rent is coming from, who is paying for the doctor's visit, let alone need to put of painting because I cannot afford that red paint I recently ran out of... but I am actually able to afford a large professional studio space where I am able to work as a professional... show my work professionally... think of myself as a professional:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...tudiosmall.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...tudiosmall.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2.../Studio3sm.jpg

I also realize that the current path I have taken certainly has had an impact upon me and my art that most certainly is different from what my ideal might have been. As a college/university teacher it is quite likely that my work would have fallen into and stayed within a far more academic mode. In other words I might have found it far easier to continue on my way as an abstract formalist. Confronted every day with children's art... with images... with art made from the most primal inspirations: the simple desire to record the world around them... the draw "things"... has all undoubtedly impacted me as an artist... for better or worse. JoZ first threw out the question about living the "literary life"? Is there really a single ideal or right approach to such?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neely

I know the reality is the real, the tiredness, the misery, but I prefer the unreality of imaginary bliss, I prefer the untrue, true, literary life.


And that`s before you`ve started on the absinthe!

Ha, ha - yes I am a screwed up individual - sometimes I talk such rubbish that even I don't know what I am saying!

Back to the topic I always think that in order to live the true literary life (or the untrue, true literary life) a person has to be totally financially independent, someone who does not need to work to earn a living. Such people as artists or writers are able to live outside of the social system in some way and are allotted, therefore, some form of true individuality. I'm thinking of particular of the poets who had patrons as in Wordsworth and Coleridge or those of their own means like Byron and Shelley. It would have been very difficult for these people to write how they did if they had to contend with 50/60 hours labour a week at their particular time of living, in the harsh times of early 19th C Britain.

I am not saying that you can't be an artist with a day job, but it is a damn sight easier if you don't have to. I would also suggest that the pure artist is one who doesn't have to conform to any particular audience or public, the true artist produces for him/herself alone and is able to create what the hell they want free from outside influence.

All of this is just the stuff of "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" I suppose, Wilde again in most ways. Wilde was a fan of absinthe too of course. :D

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What you say about being financially independent and not having to submit to the mundane daily grind is a universally held desire and those writers, artists and composers who were patronized in the past, whether by the church or aristocracy, have produced an artistic heritage that no state subsidised system could ever match; which is only one reason why I do not support socialism. However, as you point out, since then most artists have usually had to rely on `the day job` to stay alive; and while we are unlikely to produce another Michaelangelo, Caravaggio, Hadyn, Beethoven, Byron or Shelley etc. etc. there has been some pretty good work produced in the interim. So living the artists life applies to all those who have created what is generally conceived of as art, regardless of their personal circumstances.
As for Oscar Wilde, of his many witticisms the one that appeals (or even applies) most directly to myself is that `Work is the curse of the drinking-classes.`

Love the studio Stlukes, (and the divan).

But what of the writer such as Dickens or even Stephen King whose writing is so successful? Did they have no restraints? Was there no pressure to continue writing at a certain speed, in a certain genre?

They are held back by having to produce work in a particular genre, as you say, in order to meet deadlines for the publisher. The absolute artist shouldn’t (in the most ideal of all worlds) have to think about his audience at all, neither should they have to think about meeting deadlines and writing in a pre-arrange genre for a particular publisher. Of course there are successful writers, geniuses even, but that has little to do with the absolute ideal of the best conditions for art, which is the fact that the artist should be free to express themselves without any regard to outside influences.

I also realize that the current path I have taken certainly has had an impact upon me and my art that most certainly is different from what my ideal might have been. As a college/university teacher it is quite likely that my work would have fallen into and stayed within a far more academic mode. In other words I might have found it far easier to continue on my way as an abstract formalist. Confronted every day with children's art... with images... with art made from the most primal inspirations: the simple desire to record the world around them... the draw "things"... has all undoubtedly impacted me as an artist... for better or worse. JoZ first threw out the question about living the "literary life"? Is there really a single ideal or right approach to such?

Of course we are all undoubtedly a product of our social environments, including the things we read and see, as such there is no “right approach” as everyone is unique.

Ha, 'end product'? I guess the joy of reading a book itself, and finishing it.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

JoZ first threw out the question about living the "literary life"? Is there really a single ideal or right approach to such?

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Now I'm confused ... She spoke about literature, and, since the beginning, you've ... not strayed into your art, but ... Yes, of course! But a literary life certainly is a different thing from a painter's life!

It's the life of a writer. You can talk about it if you write.

If you don't write, no matter you are talking about similar things (for there is something in common between painting and writing), you aren't talking about the life related to literature.

(Unless that you like books, and that they make part of your life.)

Nice studio, by the way. Is that yours?


:crash:

She spoke about literature, and, since the beginning, you've ... not strayed into your art, but ... Yes, of course! But a literary life certainly is a different thing from a painter's life!

The question I raised was to ask just what is the "literary life" for the person who has no plans of being a writer. Others have raised the same question. I also raised the question as to how different the "literary life" is from the "artist's life" or the "composer's life"... and while I admit differences... there are also areas of overlap. What of the "scholar's life" or the "critic's life" (as raised by JBI) are these somehow invalid?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

The question I raised was to ask just what is the "literary life" for the person who has no plans of being a writer. Others have raised the same question. I also raised the question as to how different the "literary life" is from the "artist's life" or the "composer's life"... and while I admit differences... there are also areas of overlap. What of the "scholar's life" or the "critic's life" (as raised by JBI) are these somehow invalid?

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I certainly never intended to invalidate other callings through the process of raising questions about mine, although I think JBI's attempt to wall off *critic* is mute, in the contemporary era. Critics are writers, they have to be--they simply engage in a genre that demands specialization with near zero chance of real monetary gain. Poets are usually professional scholars and teachers. Those that aren't, like me, have nothing to show for it but a lot of space used up in literary journals which rarely touch more than a select audience.

I receive more affirmation in writing articles or essays, which, given my incontinence and fevers and struggling in my aging spasticity, is the most I can manage these days, a few words at a time.

The crux of my problem is the reluctant belief that I am no longer relevant because of my physical disintegration, like my ex, who no longer even tries to actually live. His power chair went down a month ago and he sits below me, a defacto prisoner in his studio, watching tv, waiting for his parts to come in. (I just had a shrill argument with his egg-head self about raising his voice and advocating for himself and he doesn't care, and we are broken off and I'd still like to kill him, which should tell me something...) Mine went down last week, and I may no longer be a player in disability activism, but I can still twist arms, and will hopefully have a loner chair Monday afternoon. But can I still go to Italy? Can I still publish successfully enough to say this life is worth it?

Vassar Miller was a successful cross-over poet; she penetrated into the able-bodied lit-crit appreciation game, but one of her end of life assistants published a heart-rending article about taking a job to help her type, and things like that, at the end of her life. He appreciated who she was, but hated the job, and didn't want to be in her company more than he had to for what he was getting paid. I don't think physically healthy people actually realize how this makes real disabled individuals with ambition feel. I feel it with state paid attendants who have had no education beyond the inner city, and when my strength fails, my options seem intensely and terribly stark, with my anger strong enough to nearly make me believe in demons.

I think the problem is though, that the writer, from what I understand, digs into himself as a source of inspiration for his work. The critic, though also digging into himself somewhat, seems to rely more on the actual text of the work. Also, I think the life of a critic is somewhat different than the life of an artist, especially in the eyes of the public. We seem to have in our minds this fantasy notion of what an artist's life is like, but I don't think many place a critic in that group.

We have a notion of a Kunstleroman, in both fiction and in our imaginations, but I am yet to come across a book about the coming into the trade of a critic - even Johnson's Autobiography doesn't seem to go there in that sense.

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Originally Posted by JBI

I think the problem is though, that the writer, from what I understand, digs into himself as a source of inspiration for his work. The critic, though also digging into himself somewhat, seems to rely more on the actual text of the work. Also, I think the life of a critic is somewhat different than the life of an artist, especially in the eyes of the public. We seem to have in our minds this fantasy notion of what an artist's life is like, but I don't think many place a critic in that group.

We have a notion of a Kunstleroman, in both fiction and in our imaginations, but I am yet to come across a book about the coming into the trade of a critic - even Johnson's Autobiography doesn't seem to go there in that sense.

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You might become the Umberto Eco of the late 21st century, for all you know;). I intuit that you have a discipline which does not fail your intelligence; mine did. I went through my first semester a virtual drunkard and made the dean's list anyway. By my senior year I was tired and wanted to get on with the business of living, so I've always been half-baked. A peasant like Pilar, with Pilar's looks too, but whose inner fire managed to get her some pleasant sexual adventures, but a Pilar with education, but education not refined enough to play in the intellectual pissing matches between The New Republic's Jewish coterie and the Harvard feminist warriors who push back against it,:idea:, a decent enough writer to keep getting published, but either not lucky or not talented enough to break through, not yet, anyway.

Your life may end up surprising you, young man.:p

Or not - I'm struggling with a paper on a very slippery novel, Sinclair Ross's As for me and My House, and the trouble seems unnatural. I guess in my stupidity I picked an unbelievably ambiguous text to work with, and now have to suffer for it. It's a shame that this course doesn't deal with more poets though - I can write on for ages on verse, but writing essays on novels, having to dig through them, and support everything is to big a hassle. I think my problem is that I like to deconstruct my own essays, which ends with me cutting them up, over and over again, until I finally, pulling out my hair, decide enough is enough, and write the damn thing.

Then again, I think Robertson Davies's "The Rebel Angels" gives hope - thinking on it, he seems to have written a book specifically about critics and academics, and their very interesting lives.

Well, I am cursing my memory. I wanted to recommend an interesting short work of criticism for you. It starts with an analysis of Homer and ends with the famous Macbeth soliloquy. I could swear that its non-fiction title was *The Song of Orpheus*, and I would recognize it if I saw it but haven't come up with it on the book sellers, so I cannot recommend what I cannot remember! But it was an exceedingly interesting book, merging classical respect with pyschoanalytic reassurance.

I missed my show over this, so good night, but if I come across it I'll let you know.

JBI... I'm curious... and perhaps I should ask the same question of Petrarch's Love... just how one comes to specialize as such an age. The critic and the scholar are indeed very specialized fields of writing... yet, as JoZ suggested... fields with virtually no chance of the writer truly gaining recognition as a writer. You speak of the deconstruction... the habit of cutting up one's own work as readily as one tears up/analyzes/deconstructs the work of another. Certainly, such can prove a trap for the creative artist... an excess of self-consciousness or self-criticism can surely destroy any thoughts of originality.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Certainly, such can prove a trap for the creative artist... an excess of self-consciousness or self-criticism can surely destroy any thoughts of originality.

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That's a very good observation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Etienne

That's a very good observation.

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Who knows - Nietzsche's Apollonian Dionysian seems to suggest something along those lines. Creating anything is still a very difficult thing to do, art especially. One needs to always be conscious of what is going into it, and how it will be received.

I write for my marks, and my marks depend on how well I write. Professors and teacher's assistants aren't stupid - you can't BS them and get away with it very easily. Critics, and audiences are the same.

No body likes rejection, or to be viewed as mediocre, or bellow perfect. Everyone works to achieve, or should work to achieve, the maximum. The problem is there is time, and other things - we cannot perfect anything. That's the problem - when I submit my essays, it is not because I think they are ready, or perfect, or that I have said exactly what I want to say exactly how I want to say it, but out of a time constraint. If everyone had the time to work, we would come up with very little.

That is probably why Yeats was such a good poet - he had time. He wrote two lines a day, and edited extensively. Elizabeth Bishop was the same way, if not even more meticulous. Yet the thing is, they didn't have the fear of being flat-out rejected, or of not having what to put on the table.

Creating anything that isn't generic is always a struggle. Whether critic or artist, though I think the artist has it a little worse since even if they succeed there is still the danger of economic failure, whereas the critic perhaps has more certainty.

Well in the case of the work of a scholar (as opposed to the work of an artist) of course, the matter is different. I don't think that self-consciousness is bad, nor an excess of it, but that it becomes harder and harder to express one's creativity with it. Perhaps when it does come about the result is better? I don't know.