In his essay "Quotation and Originality," one of the most significant literary discussions about creativity, Emerson repeatedly attests to the essential importance of the past in the present, and confutes the myth that the appropriation of another's ideas is inferior to inventing one's own:

Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs by imitation.¹²³

The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship. It never troubles the simple seeker from whom he derived such or such a sentiment. Whoever expresses to us a just thought makes ridiculous the pains of the critic who should tell him where such a word had been said before. . . . In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others, as it is to invent.¹²⁴

As a writer, he is particularly aware of the importance of quotation in literature:

If we confine ourselves to literature, 'tis easy to see that the debt is immense to past thought. None escapes it. The originals are not original. There is imitation, model, and suggestion, to the very archangels, if we knew their history.¹²⁵

A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word as good.¹²⁶

If an author give us just distinctions, inspiring lessons, or imaginative poetry, it is not so important to us whose they are. If we are fired and guided by these, we know him as a benefactor, and shall return to him as long as he serves us so well.¹²⁷

Further, Emerson was convinced that borrowing from the past was a matter of elemental natural necessity:

It is inevitable that you are indebted to the past. You are fed and formed by it. The old forest is decomposed for the composition of the new forest.¹²⁸

As evidence that "Genius borrows nobly," he cites the example of some of Europe's most prominent literary figures:

Goethe frankly said, What would remain to me if this art of appropriation were derogatory to genius? Every one of my writings has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, a thousand things. . . . My work is an aggregation of beings taken from the whole of nature; it bears the name of Goethe."¹²⁹

And we must thank Karl Ottfried Müller for the just remark, "Poesy, drawing within its circle all that is glorious and inspiring, gave itself but little concern as to where its flowers originally grew."¹³⁰

It is a curious reflex of this enhancement of our thought by citing it from another, that many men can write better under a mask than for themselves; as Chatterton in archaic ballad, Le Sage in Spanish costume, Macpherson as "Ossian". . . .¹³¹

In this light, each historical style might be compared to a distinctive costume hung in the wardrobe of the imagination. Like an actor, the historicist selects the proper costume for the role he wishes to perform or for the idea or mood he has to convey. If he is an actor of some versatility and erudition, his wardrobe is necessarily quite large and diverse so that it might fully accommodate the widest possible variety of parts.

Although Emerson himself was not particularly drawn to the poet who chose "an antique or far-fetched subject for his muse," he did acknowledge that it was certainly understandable "when the life of genius is so redundant that out of petulance it flings its fire into some old mummy, and lo! it walks and blushes again here in the street."¹³²

Emerson cites a theory which suggests a possible metaphysical explanation for historicism and advances his own belief that some form of "Supreme Intellect" inspires the receptive mind:

Swedenborg threw a formidable theory into the world, that every soul existed in a society of souls, from which all its thoughts passed into it, as the blood of the mother circulates in her unborn child; and he noticed that, when in his bed, alternately sleeping and waking--sleeping, he was surrounded by persons disputing and offering opinions on the one side and on the other side of a proposition; waking, the like suggestions occurred for and against the proposition as his own thoughts; sleeping again, he saw and heard the speakers as before: and this as often as he slept and waked.¹³³

If the thinker feels that the thought most strictly his own is not his own, and recognizes the perpetual suggestion of the Supreme Intellect, the oldest thoughts become new and fertile whilst he speaks them.¹³⁴

According to art historian H. W. Janson, creativity is defined by originality, which is the factor that "distinguishes art from craft"--the "yardstick of artistic greatness or importance." He acknowledges, however, that originality is very difficult to define, and that such synonyms as "uniqueness," "novelty," and "freshness" offer very little help in this connection. Like Emerson, he believes that there is no work of art that is completely original, and that without tradition "no originality would be possible," but balks at the possibility of ascertaining exactly how "original" a given work is. He does conclude, however, that an "original" work cannot be a "copy, reproduction, imitation, or translation." It is not entirely clear what Janson means by "imitation," however, as he obviously regards Manet's derivative "Luncheon on the Grass" as a work of consummate artistry (see chap. 1).¹³⁵ Few are likely to question that a slavish copy or reproduction in not "original." However, Janson's view that an "imitation" or "translation" can be discounted is certainly open to revision. Imitation, for example, may be understood in the Aristotelian sense of mimesis (see above), and a fine translation of another's work--as Allen Mandelbaum's English version of Dante's Divine Comedy--is hardly lacking in "originality."

At Harvard, Howard Gardner and David Perkins have long made creativity a focus of their research at the Graduate School of Education. Gardner concludes that "three components are involved in creativity: an individual's talents or gifts, the area in which a person tries to be creative, and the culture that decides if something is original enough to be recognized." He also indicates, "People with the highest IQs are not the most creative, and the most creative people do not always have the highest IQs," because IQ tests themselves measure only linguistic and logical-mathematical ability, ignoring spatial, musical, body kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence.¹³⁶

Perhaps the biggest problem with Gardner's theory is his emphasis on outside validation of an individual's creativity. Berkeley once posed the question, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" In this conection, one might equally well ask, "If a composer creates a score and no one else hears it, does it have any value?" Whether his work is heard and accepted or languishes in silent oblivion, the composer observes himself in the act of creation. External recognition may be profesionally advantageous, but it certainly does not confer creativity. "Recognition" implies that what is deemed to be creative conforms to some known standard of originality, so that by extension anything that is incongruent with that standard will go unnoticed. In actuality, this has frequently happened; as Gardner himself explains, "you might die before you are recognized."¹³⁷ Therefore, recognition based on established criteria about what creativity is or is not actually represents a potential impediment to understanding. Helping people to disabuse themselves of such preconceptions is ultimately far more important for art and the artist than getting them to "recognize" and thus validate his work.¹³⁸

Perkins has devised a sixfold "snowflake model" which analyzes what he considers to be the various aspects of an individual's creativity: 1) problem finding (ability to identify and completely understand a problem); 2) objectivity (openness to intelligent criticism and other points of view); 3) operating at the edge (stamina and tenacity in undertaking great challenges which may test and tax one's abilities to the limit or result in frustration, criticism, or hardship); 4) intrinsic motivation (striving for originality in an area with which one is thoroughly familiar); 5) aesthetic orientation ("a drive to reduce complexity to order and simplicity"); and 6) mobility (challenging assumptions, using analogy and metaphor, redefining problems).¹³⁹

Although Perkins's model reflects certain traits characteristic of individuals he identifies as creative, those same characteristics may be observed in any person with excellent health; high intelligence; keen motivation and tenacity; exceptional expertise; great efficiency; and outstanding communications skills--say, a bank president, a congressman, an airplane pilot, or a plastic surgeon. True, these people may be creative in their own way, but somehow that mysterious "essence" of artistic creativity seems to be missing from the model. What is more, the notion that creative people strive for originality is problematic for the same reason that Gardner's emphasis on recognition is: striving for something implies that one already knows what it is he is after, but the assumption that one knows what originality is is not the same thing as being "original," and--following Perkins's own concept of "mobility"--will most likely preclude originality if left unchallenged.

Setting aside for the moment these time-oriented analytical interpretations, I would like to propose instead that creativity actually involves "stepping outside of time" into a state of awareness completely beyond the conceptual frontiers of ordinary human consciousness. This means not being tethered to the remembered past or the imagined future, observing what is with complete, unbiased attention. Whether one produces art in this state or not is irrelevant: the product of creation is not creation itself.

The contents of consciousness--memories--are like the pieces of colored glass in a kaleidoscope: these can be rearranged in a virtually limitless number of ways by the turns and shakings of the imagination, but the final product will always be some arrangement of what already exists. Imagination depends on the past and its accumulated memories. It is a thing which can be cultivated, exercised, and stimulated, then expressed in various artistic media, but it is not creation. Creativity springs from the unknown, imagination from the known. Imagination may bring about the unexpected appearance or disappearance of existing pieces, or even lead to the discovery and introduction of a piece not already in the kaleidoscope, but in creativity, there is the operation of a different instrument entirely. The product of creativity may outwardly resemble that of imagination, as creativity may express itself through forms, styles, and techniques already resident in memory, but as a process it is essentially detached and timeless, not dependent on expression or memory. Any effort to recognize or invite it represents activity within the field of time and consciousness, and will inevitably fail. Creativity is motiveless and selfless, untouched by the judgements and prejudices of a central, time-bound observer. (It seems to me that John Cage was aware of this on an intellectual level, but never could quite "chuck the system," as Earle Brown once suggested.)

Is historicist art creative? If it is produced in conscious emulation of preexisting "models" judged by the artist to be superior because they have stood the test of time, it is a product of the imagination, but not truly creative in the present sense. If the artist, on the other hand, is fully aware of the same preexisting models but does not believe he must imitate or modify them, and allows inspiration to take its own course without the interference of conscious like or dislike, his work is creative however much it draws on materials already at hand. Without knowing the mind and intent of the artist, it may well be impossible to discern which of his works are simply products of the imagination and which are the progeny of creation--but after a work of art already has come into existence, it is actually the quality of awareness in the individuals who experience it that is of primary concern.

The analogy of the kaleidoscope might serve in a discussion of musical style. By definition, to compose in a given style is to begin with a closed system--the finite number of colored glass pieces in the kaleidoscope. It is still possible, through the faculty of imagination, to generate new patterns, i.e., new arrangements of the existing pieces. Knowing the elements of baroque musical structure and style, one can compose a new piece in that style, and if one's knowledge and imagination are great, the piece will doubtless sound authentic in every detail. This, however, describes a movement within consciousness. By insisting upon the limits of a closed system, creativity has been precluded. If however, composition begins without consciously imposing these or any other limits--by remaining receptive to the possibility of something outside the system or even of abandoning the materials at hand entirely--there is the freedom necessary for creativity to take place. The final product may still be a piece in baroque style, or it may also be something quite different. It is not always possible on the basis of the music alone to discern if its composer created or imagined it: once it is written down, the music is simply a thing which may or may not clearly reflect the mind of its maker. The essence of creation, however, is in the doing, not in the product. The essence of enjoying art is in experiencing it directly, without prejudice, and this, too, is creation.

proteus@newmusicclassics.com