What Makes a Creative Artist?

Hyde, Morris, and Banes discuss the impact of community on creativity. Provide a central argument (or two) that explains the relationship among these theorists on issues of community and creativity. Be specific about the elements of community and how they differ/are similar from Banes' alternative community to Hyde's gift economy to Morris's "age of" theory.

According to Hyde, in contrast to an impersonal, modern capitalist economy where exchanges are based in values ascribed to particular goods and services, the gift economy is about reinforcing personal relationships. True creativity comes from speaking from the heart, all of the potentially embarrassing things which remain unsaid. Hyde idealizes poets such as Yeats and Pound, who saw themselves as intimately connected to a community and a lineage, versus just writing for the marketplace. Artists cannot feel driven to produce simply to replicate what is popular. "The fruits of the creative spirit is the work of art itself" (Hyde 192). A gift is exchanged based upon relational affirmation, not upon objective transactions that have randomly ascribed monetary values.

While Hyde is primarily focused upon poetry, Barnes is instead focused upon plays and how avant-garde plays often create alternative communities, versus those of the hegemonic society. "They came to live and work in Greenwich Village precisely because it was possible to form an alternative community there" (Barnes 38). Barnes' vision of an alternative community is to some extent an answer to some of the idealization found in Hyde. Even Hyde notes that some people's ability to gain social mobility has been stifled because of familial and community demands and upward mobility often demands people cut themselves off from relatives and others who would make financial demands upon them. Less obvious is the fact that people may be asked to censor their art because of worries about their family and what the community might think. But because of the availability of alternative communities, people can enjoy all of the benefits of solidarity without being mired back in their original, potentially unwelcoming home communities. For members of marginalized groups such gays, lesbians, minorities, and women, this ability to create an alternative community can be especially valuable. Communities do not have to be indigenous such as the community ties of Ireland harkened back to in the poetry of Yeats, they can also be spontaneous.

Barnes' celebration of modern communities is also something of an antidote to Morris' very nostalgic invoking of communities of the past. Morris writes: "for whereas all works of craftsmanship were once beautiful, unwittingly or not, they are now divided into two kinds, works of art and non-works of art" (Morris 3). This suggests that capitalism has attempted to put a value on art in a negative way, which has resulted in the degradation of art. (A good example of this might be seen in how works of literature tend to be divided according to categories of "serious" literature versus "popular fiction" in a manner which was not the case in the past). Alternative communities enable "serious" literature to be created that still serves the needs of the people in a specific fashion even while it suits the needs of an (admittedly smaller) marketplace.

Q2. Dillard, Hyde and Bueno present several ways to understand inspiration as an important part of creating. In this essay, pinpoint an important myth or two concerning inspiration that these theorists debunk. Be specific, keeping in mind that all of these artists and theorists approach inspiration in practical and concrete ways.

Hyde's concept of a creative artist is one which is securely grounded in a larger community and thus runs contrary to the idealized concept of a Renaissance artist, creating art in isolation, alone. Writers must be connected to a community to have something to articulate. Communication is a gift in the sense that it is an exchange for Hyde, and the meaning must be located outside of the artist's own framework of inner experience. This is not to say that Hyde dismisses the concept of personal creativity, which he stresses is very separate from the modern, capitalist economy. Creative inspiration is not something which can be quantified and marketed for a mass audience in a democratic fashion, either: "the true commerce of art is a gift exchange, and where that commerce can proceed on its own terms we shall be heirs to the fruits of gift exchange" (Hyde 205-206). Hyde disdains those who would see creativity as a democratic choice based upon Nielson ratings and believes that true creativity, even good works of popular culture have something lacking in them because they are not based upon mutual reciprocity thus the idea that America is a "free" nation in which to create is also suspect, given the extent to which creative artists are beholden by the market.