juliet's tomb

Image shaped in isolation

04/14 2023

The image that only a single man can shape is an image that interests no man. --- Borges, 'Averroës's Search'

The view that artistic creation is an isolatory gesture, an act of the imagination reaching out from the unexplainable subconscious to the page, is pervasive. The reason for this makes sense: we like to think that when we create things, we do so in virtue of ourselves, and not the total sum of everything we've experienced up until that point. In other words, the explanation that when we create things we only put together puzzle pieces in various pieces from others is wholly unacceptable. The pervasiveness of this idea, I think, gatekeeps the act of creation to many (especially those who ties up their identity to the act of not failing, á la Carol Dweck). Judging by the tone of my words, I reckon you're smart enough to guess that I take the other, more difficult to swallow explanation; i.e. that when we create something, all we are really doing is connecting the dots between loosely related ideas, phrasings, and images, to form something new. As Julian Barnes put it in his book 'Levels of Life': "You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed."

Now, when I express this view to people, they often recoil in horror, as if I am endorsing plagiarism. Which, according to some definition, I guess I am. Can you plagiarize an idea? Well, that depends, right? How about a line of text? Most assuredly you can. Can you use that line of text in a way to honor the source material, but still create something new? I say sure, especially in the sense of intertextuality, something which Richard Thomas writes about concerning Bob Dylan's supposed relationship with plagiarism. For Dylan, Thomas instead sees it as in the same tradition as using old things to express new things, borrowing sentiment and experience, but never just copying (without giving it new life). One could therefore interpret the creation of art as taking old pieces, combining it with something new, and then adding a little bit of the inexplicably you at the end. Thomas presents many examples, but take this one (from chapter 5 in 'Why Dylan Matters'), parallels between an old folk song (which he used to sing diligently in 1960/1961) and then Dylan's own song 'Don't think twice it's all right', released in 1963:

Dylan's song, while assuredly borrowing from the earlier source material, nonetheless would by almost no one be considered as stealing from the earlier song. It is simply the extension of an idea, combined with others to form something new. You could argue that this is merely circumstantial, that it is only a coincidence that they are similar. That he sat down to write something, and then it just happened to be similar. According to the argument that art is an isolatory creative experience, that would be considered fine, since it didn't mean to copy something. I just think that point is naive. If the end result is the same, why not use every tool in the toolbox to get the job done? In fact, one could see the attempt of trying to write in total isolation as doing the exact same thing as manually putting together the pieces, but instead leaving it up to the amalgamation of infinitely small pieces of memories, impressions and traditions constituting your upbringing to that particular moment, which works --- no doubt about it --- but it isn't very interesting by itself¹.

This brings me back to the counter argument, that art in fact is an isolatory creation, specifically the connection with the quote from Borges in the beginning. The image shaped in isolation indeed doesn't interest any man. Consider this quote from Dylan:

Sometimes when songwriters write from their own lives, the results can be so specific, other people can’t connect to them. Putting melodies to diaries doesn’t guarantee a heartfelt song. --- Dylan, 'Philosophy of Modern Song'

If art was truly created solely through the extension of the imagination, I suspect that it wouldn't be very interesting. We understand art through commonalities, through shared experiences, and old stories told through a new lens. Seeing the act of creation as a solitary experience contradicts this. Maybe it is just me, but I'd actually like to consciously shape the experience in creation, consciously include things that I like, combine things that I like, to form new things. I don't like the idea of, similar to Willie Loman, sitting hunched over the darkened kitchen table, talking with myself, about myself, playing cards with myself and my dead brother just to find out where to go next. The past already tells that story so well, as long as there is somebody to interpret it.