Creativity versus Imitation April 18, 2007

I found this article because it had the word “grammar” in it and therefore came up in my search. (One of my searches; I have tried several). It is not about instructing in grammar, but it is about literature and I thought it was interesting. We shall begin with the sentence in question:

Let’s take grammar for example. Obeying the rules of grammar is fine if you’re writing a conventional essay or a manual about car repair. However, when you’re writing creative literature you should write as freely as possible – without rules.

There are those that argue that if the writer does not obey the rules of grammar his work will be incomprehensible.

This blog post entitled “We Need a Revolution in Literature” was found on writershangout.com. Wolf Larsen writes that literature should not be so defined by its form- why are novels, plays, short stories, and poetry the only choices? They certainly aren’t.

He complains about the motivations of those that financially support authors and literature. Part of the reason I was interested in this topic is that it echoes what I heard from writer Kristin Gore when she came to this campus a couple months ago. She told my WRT 200 class that her book was marketed as “Chick Lit” even though she had not written it that way. But Chick Lit gets reviews in women’s magazines and gets places on bestseller lists. This is the way of all literature.

One of the reasons literature is so limited is that it is still shackled to the major publishing conglomerates and the universities. Literature will not be free until it has unshackled itself from the crass commercial interests of the publishing conglomerates and the conservative influences of the universities.

Publishing houses have one and only one purpose: to make money. They are hostile to innovation in literature, because publishing innovative literature involves risk. And they certainly don’t want to risk their money! The publishing conglomerates want to continue pouring potential best sellers (particularly airport novels) unto the market. And to the publishing houses that’s all literature is – a market.

If the only reason the public gets access to literature is the current taste of those in charge, then we can expect that we aren’t getting the most interesting or innovative literature available. The true greats do not imitate the old masters. Thsy study them, they learn from them, they surpass them.

Academia may claim to be interested in quality in contemporary literature, and academia may also be less interested in money. But academia is primarily interested in promoting the “great” writers and poets of the past and those who today imitate them. (Of course there are exceptions to this – there’s exceptions to everything.) Anyway, after learning in a university about the “greats” of the past what is the writer/poet to do? Should he imitate the “greats” of the past in his writing, or should he seek to create his own innovative literature?

By a young age Picasso had assimilated the “masters” of the past – and he went on to create new brazen works of art – he departed from the past – and created wonderful CONTEMPORARY masterpieces. Mozart also mastered traditional styles of classical music – and he went on to create music that at his time was INNOVATIVE.

In order to bring this post around to my topic, I suggest that the same rules apply to grammar. There needn’t be only imitation, only comprehensible means of expression. (Although the blogger has something to say about the definition of “comprehensible” as well…) This leads us to the question of who decides what the standard is, and then to that familiar criticism of the literary canon:

Many of the “great works” of English literature in the canon were written by “gentleman” with disposable income (that they didn’t have to work for) and lots of free time, as well as the high social connections to insure that their work was published. Not all of them were talented or had much to say. Is a writer/poet’s work “great” just because it’s included in the Norton Anthology and the professor taught it in your literature 101 class?

Of course, some “great” works of the past are better than others. Some of these gentleman of leisure in the canon had talent – in addition to the work ethic necessary to produce great literature – but not all of them.

Literature has not even begun to reach its potential. In fact, literature will not even begin to reach its potential until all of humanity has ample food in its stomach and plenty of free time.

Saying something like ‘celebrate our differences’ is a little too “Mr. Roger’s Happy Fun Time” for me, but in this case it is kind of true. There is no reason we have to always imitate. And I think that the example of the rich white man in charge is exemplary of the kind of language rules that we have. The people in charge decide, but the people in charge aren’t the only people. They aren’t even the majority. You can also equate slang (and maybe even the dreaded text speak” to the following discussion of fads:

Nearly everything ever painted, sculpted, or written in “good taste” later withered and died with time. “Good taste” is nothing more than what is in fashion at the time – and as time passes what was in “good taste” centuries ago becomes trivial.

Many of the masters of the past in literature, painting, sculpture, and music were nothing less than innovators and revolutionaries in their time. Their work often caused controversy because they were not enslaved to tradition. They did not care about “good taste”. They could give a damn about the opinions of others.

Grammar good taste is equally silly and changing. Half our grammar rules came about because people wanted our language to be more like Latin, and they aren’t even in the same family.