Creative Piece of Writing - Essay Example

CREATIVE PIECE OF WRITING Art was given for this. God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out (Robert Browning: Fra Lippo Lippi, 1855) It is fact beyond doubt that there not only exists a strong and an intimate association between life and literature, but also life is the subject matter of all genres and forms of creative writing. It is therefore it has aptly been said that literature is the reflection of life and the norms, values, traditions, conventions and taboos prevailing in a society which can be found and preserved in creative writing as the intellectual heritage of a particular culture and civilization. It is social and cultural features that provide the raw material to creativity on which the foundations of literature stand. Thus, realities of life give birth to the formation of literature. Looking into the history of the world at large, it becomes obvious that all human societies have worked for the preservation of their culture in the form of poetry, art, sculpture, drama, paintings and other forms of creativity. It is therefore ancient Greek philosophers and thinkers have discussed literature in their lectures and writings. Plato has also analysed literature critically with special focus on poesy. He has declared poetry as mere imitation of life, and a true literary genre presents the actual picture of patterns of life without concealing the bitter facts it maintains. Aristotle, in his renowned Poetics, views men mere objects of imitation. “Since the objects of imitation are men in action, he argues, and these men must be either of a higher or a lower type, it follows that we must represent men either as better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are. It is the same in painting.” (Aristotle: Poetics, Chapter 2) Poetry, drama, novel, fiction, prose, essay, short story and sonnets are the main literary genres, among which romance maintains the most significant place that has captured the attention of the readers especially during the modern and post modern times. Different scholars have defined the term romance differently. Usually romance is attributed to those pieces where both the theme and the events present the story in comparatively more glamorous and adventurous way. “Something grander”, Peck & Coyle view, “than the novel’s familiar concern with social issues is involved in the romance, because it suggest a search for some truth beyond that which we might encounter in ordinary experience.” (1989, p 118) Romance is especially attributed to English and American literatures, from where it has successfully completed its long excursion in a systematic and persistent way. “A romantic novel”, Wikipaedia Encyclopaedia states, “is a literary genre developed in Western culture, the primary focus of which is on romantic relationship between two individuals that must have an optimistic and happy ending.” (Romance Novel: quoted in Wikipaedia Encyclopaedia). The term romantic has also been derived from the word romance which was the name given to a specific type of literature that flourished in the Middle Ages. Adventures, often of a spiritual order, were its staple. They were most often the adventures of a hero or a medieval knight. In romance, it was grotesqueness rather than symmetry or order that was most striking. A medieval romance is full of wonderful and supernatural incidents heaped on one another without proportion. It has nothing of the artistic form of a classical epic that existed in the works of Homer and Virgil. “Romance has”, Lye submits, “a very long and complex history. It was once the place of knights, dragons, quests, magic, spells, wizards, heroic deeds; it dramatized serious moral and political issues through its allegorizing powers, psychological and theological complexities through its symbolism, and it entertained.” (1998) Every literary genre contains popular conventions and traditions, which not only shape the works, but also are imperative in forming and developing the same. This is also the case with romantic novel. Though romance existed in Greek mythology too on the one hand and in medieval and renaissance literature on the other, and it was applied in poetry and drama, yet history of romantic novel is the matter of nearly two and half centuries. “The medieval emissaries of the Catholic Church brought to Great Britain a Continental literary system based on Greek and Latin Classics. Such native legends as those of King Arthur, Guy of Warwick, Robin Hood, the blue Hag of Leicester and King Lear were considered suitable for the masses and writers to imitate and produce new romantic and epic literature.” (Graves, 1964 p 11) The writers expressed the heroic deeds of the main characters with great interest and tried to project the valour heroes and heroines had displayed in wars and battlefields. Homer’s Iliad maintains special significance in this regard and the future generations followed the same in their works as Graves submits while discussing Greek mythology. “At Heras orders the Titan seized Zeuss newly born son Dionysus, a horned child crowned with serpents and, despite his transformations, tore him into shreds. These they boiled in a cauldron, while a pomegranate-tree sprouted from the soil where his blood had fallen.” (Graves, 1964 p 103) While examining the history of English novel, it turn out to be evident that though novel is the product of eighteenth century, when Richardson produced his work under the title Pamela in 1740, yet romantic literature existed far before the inclusion of novel in creative writing. The poets and dramatists of Anglo Saxon and Medieval eras applied romance in their works of both verse and plays. Chivalric romance prevailed in the literature of Anglo Saxon, Medieval and Restoration times, where heroic works of the characters were described in a supernatural and metaphysical way. Greek mythological works also presented stories of gods, goddesses and kings in a heroic way. With the popularity of romance in medieval era, the gods were replaced by knights, but the pattern of romance remained almost the same. "Taking the example of Chaucers Canterbury Tales", Zaidi writes, "it appears that fighting and displaying valour was the main theme of the romance, where every man tried to capture the attention of ladies by showing brave deeds, wisdom and physical strength." (2002:31) There are many conventions and traditions attributed with the romance. These include: Display of extreme bravery up to cruelty by the hero or heroine against villain or scoundrel was an important convention of romance. Though the intensity of it had decreased in modern literature, but the battlefields have been replaced by the conspiracies. Another convention of the romance included an ultimate happy ending even the bitterest story. Thus, good characters always won the game in the end under even the worst possible circumstances. "The romance finished", Singh opines, "with smiles on the countenance of the lovers and tears into the eyes of the villain; hence, the end of romance simply meant the complete defeat of the evil." The trend of romance especially in Renaissance and medieval times maintained kings, knights and nobles as the central figure; it is therefore conspiracies among the courtiers prevailed all time. Though this trend has taken a drastic change with the passage of time and the story in the contemporary romance revolves round common people within the framework of ordinary life. "The heroes, heroines and lovers in the Shakespearean tragedy and comedy were princes, princesses and richest stratum of society." (Daiches, 2000:198) Change is the spice of life and it is therefore an element of change is inevitable in literary genre too. Though the role of gender always prevailed in romance, and the concept of goddesses, princesses and passion for opposite sex existed from the most primitive to the most modern creative writings. Nineteenth century novels of Jane Austin Hardy, Dickens, Bronte sisters and others presented male dominance and concepts of liking, engagements and marriage between the two sexes. Most of these novels had happy ending and the lovers found their ultimate love after undergoing many trials and facing so many domestic conspiracies. Twentieth century gave new ideas to romance and it turned from ordinary love affairs to complicated themes of uncertainties. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) expresses feelings of isolation, loneliness and recluse life where everyone is in search of real compassionate partner. A ray of feminism also runs throughout the novel introducing new ways of life. The second half of twentieth century brought so many socioeconomic and cultural alterations in social life. The interracial acculturation and migration of the people from one region of the globe to the other created culturally highly diversified society. The element of sex won utmost attention in romance genre. The novels, articles and essays reflect the decline of moral values and creation of free and independent sex societies. The contemporary romance depicts the presence of feminism, gender discrimination and racism everywhere. The English romantic novelist Margaret Drabble in her novel “The Ice Age” portrays the bleak view of male-dominated society where a woman has least chances of personality development and career growth without the will and support of men. She explores the story of girls who seek financial gains at the price of offering their body to the bosses and business partners. Similarly, ray of racism can be found in African-American writers in great excess. Tony Morrisons Jazz and other novels also signify the same element. The factor of same gender preference can also be discovered in the romance of previous century. The article under the title “Survival” has been extracted from Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature created by eminent feminist writer Dorothy Allison, who raised a strong voice against child molestation and violence against the delicate sex. The article is a bold representation of malpractices committed in the contemporary American society particularly in lower middle and lower-lower communities. Allison, the American feminist writer and analyst has very courageously submitted the sensitive case before the world and brought to the limelight how the small children of both sexes, especially the girls from the lower stratum of society, are deflowered by family members, teachers, neighbours and other community members since their childhood when they are not even familiar with the words and concepts like sex, rape, exploitation and abuse etc. “Condemned to the sub-human life of the streets”, Cullen (1992:2) notes, “and destined to become prostitutes as the cast-offs of a selfish society, thousands of hungry children are the living witnesses to the greed and avarice of the few hundred ruling families who maintain a closed system of structural injustice perpetuated by violence and a disdain for human rights.” Child abuse or ill-treatment of children includes all curses imposed on children i.e. physical torture, sexual abuse, psychological affliction, as well as common medical and educational neglect. “My age, my family background”, she states, “the region and class in which I grew up, and yes, my times---the political and moral eras I have come through—have shaped me.” (Allison, 2005, p 209) All such works brought imperative alterations in the subject of romance. Social groups are not only divided into different classes in respect of socio-economic status and different occupations and professions, but also distribution of a society is based on age, gender and religion too. Social inequalities are found in all fields of life and in all the institutions prevailing in a society. In this pretext the Feminist perspective theory came into existence. The idea of division of labour on the basis of gender gave birth to feminism. It was a strong voice against the inequalities between men and women in respect of social status, division of power as well as work and gender discrimination. Wikipedia Encyclopaedia defines feminism in these words: “Feminism is said to be the diverse collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies against inequality between men and women, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women, especially in terms of their legal, social, political, and economic conditions.” Feminist theorists have declared all other theoretical perspectives as prejudiced towards women including functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and conflict theory. The theorists who brought the significance of women’s participation in the social construction programmes to the limelight were declared as rebels and then liberals and Marxists. With the passage of time, these theorists got the title of Feminists. The feminists perspective resembles with Marxism as both these schools of thoughts were founded against the inequality and domination of some other strata existing in the society. Marxist-feminists characterise women as alienated especially in capitalism, though radical feminists state alienation exists in all economic system existing in the contemporary world. Women at different parts of the world, whether developing or developed, contain a rich and long-term history of struggle against male domination and exploitation. They have strived in an organized way, on their own behalf against exploitation and diminishing circumstances. The richest, most varied, and most typical arena of women’s political engagement is found in the politics of everyday life. The site of this activism is the terrain between the state and family that is usually ignored in conventional investigations of politics. Viewed globally, the diversity of civic activities is staggering, even though countries vary dramatically in the form and extensiveness of civic life and the places of women in it (1994, 18). In the nineteenth century, women writers, novelists and poets were discouraged while producing their works. Even, Mary Evans Ann had to name her George Eliot to hide and conceal her feminine identity. Though Victorian literature contained the works of female writers, but the atmosphere was not appreciable at all. The share of women in social construction was not acknowledged, although they worked in fields, in hospitals, teaching institutes and other professions. Still the male domination was oppressive and tyrannical. At first, Elizabeth Stanton in 19th century and Emma Goldman in the beginning of 20th century raised her voice in the United States for the women rights. Other feminist theorists including Patricia Hill Collins and others launched campaign for their rights in the later half of 20th century and demanded that women too should have been the same rights as had been delegated to men. Eisenstein has described the radical feminist theory in these words: Historically, radical feminism started with the assumption that the sexes are adversarially poised, that men have power over women, and that society and its various social relationships can be best understood in terms of their relationship to that situation (Eisenstein 1983). Life of mind has its own power to investigate, research and express. It is the essence of academic writing, and particularly writing academic essays. The zeal of learning and the enthusiasm to put that in form of writing is a stimulating factor, which sets aside the academic genre from the rest of the public. These are specialized group of thinkers who learn to stimulate their own mind as well as the minds of others. This is selective world of writers finding originality of expression through research, analysis and introspection. This selective genre of writers who are involved in writing academic essays are intellectuals striving to be “transparent” and “clear” on a wide range of diverse writings with reflections and judgments about writing. They enjoy their freedom of thought and expression, making the observation part of their intellect and selectively filtering the cream from the content and they have selective audience. The academic essay is a genre of exclusion. This group of stimulated minds, which are involved in academic writing thrives and fosters within the university system. This is very different from the writing, which emerges out of the academy, form the public and commercial domain. Academic writing though addressing the selective group of people, and rewarded specially within the limited circle of university system has a position of growth in the modern times as there is greater exposure to a greater number of people across the globe. There could not have been a better time for such selective writer to influence the minds of their selective audience with the power of reaching to them taking full advantage of e-publishing and print on demand. The new technology has given new life to the exposure of academic journals. This gives them an edge of advantage which they did not have before. Though academic writing is confined in its content, vocabulary and procedures, in the present day highly competitive environment there is greater opportunities to keep the young academics engaged and stimulated. Academic writers with their highly introspective approach and imaginative and intellectual abilities have the power to penetrate into the issues of cultural, social, political and economic matters with deeper insight and understanding. They delve in reflective and controversial issues which sees the bigger picture more critically, and “becoming a critical intellectual involves “working hard on difficult texts”, and it entails “undergoing something painful and difficult: an estrangement from what is most familiar”.(Olson,2003,p.9)Academic writing requires a certain elevation of the thinking process aiming to reach the depth of the subject while understanding the psychology and the socio-ethnic aspect of the influence. This specialized group of academic writers feels that intellectual work is so demanding and so painful, that many academics simply avoid it or take to more commercial mode of writing. This gap between the popular writing and the academic writing is like a double movement in which the audience has to choose from one side to another. This can result in the general public and the intellectual to drift apart in their journey of exploration of this humanity which I the common ground for both the genres. The distinction between the public and the intellectual has been a subject of periodic debate, which clearly needs to define the relation ship between the public and the intellectual. There is a fine line which divides as well as binds the two segment of communication addressing audiences of different calibre and interest. This debate is about what an academic intellectual is and what a public intellectual is. “Meanjin” is a literary journal which is devoted to high end academic writers and intellectual audiences. This magazine devoted an issue to academic writers, analyzing their position and their opportunities in the present modern day world. Some of them who were optimistic were happy about the opportunities for new ideas and expressions in the new media focusing on the universities and book publishing. Some people held different opinion about the use of knowledge and learning in universities as reduced entity in the form of commodity in the present race of media bazaar and e publishing. They feel that this is not suitable for the position of the intellectual elites, as forces, which once dominated the realm of freedom and moral authority The importance of critical intelligentsia which comprise the collective importance of thinking and that includes both the intellectual and the public, has special role in the raising the moral authority of the system and acknowledge the freedom of the audience. This exclusive group can have influence o the deeper aspects of life, morality, virtue and goodness. The freedom of expression and introspection the very essence of academic writing has its influence from the ancient philosophy of Plato and Socrates, which offers deeper investigation and inquiry into the happenings of this world with reference to various aspects of good life full of thinking and insightful writing. There have been radical changes in both the universities and the publishing industry, one of the critical questions is to estimate the grounds which concern vital questions regarding the emergence of the new generation of thinkers and the writers who are going to be the influencing factor for the next generation through their thoughts, expressions and ideas. These young thinkers are going to be the part of the public culture, which needs to be in touch with the elevated intelligentsia. They need to be influenced by the depth of their vision and thinking to help lift the society, morally and economically. This puts a great pressure the academic writers to join the public group, the most penetrating question is will they join the group. Homi Bhabha beautifully captures his intimate relationship with writing when he recalls Toni Morrison saying to him once, “Writing is all”, if you can do it in the writing and through the writing, through the actual writing, you can’t do it by giving ideas or thoughts.”(Olson, 2003,p.37) Bell Hooks uses her unique voice to communicate her experience and her love for enriching experiences as par of learning and academics. She is concerned with the interlacing dynamics of race, gender, culture and class and her overall orientation to the whole person and to their well-being when connected with her ability to engage with educational practice in a direct way set her apart from the vast bulk of her contemporaries. She loved learning. She gives a very practical observation of how ideas changed her thinking and her character. Her experience of the change brought on by the idea is pure pleasure. She also understood the fine line of the conformity at home and her ability to forget herself completely at school to remerge through ideas and reinvent her passion. In this beautiful expression by this impressionable writer, who can be very aptly categorized as an academic writer who is of exclusive genre, where education and learning is the core essence of intellectual stimulation and higher thinking of the bigger world with better prospects for wroth and nurturing? In the area of innovation and research, the role of young scholars is very significant. They are the minds capable of discrimination and judgment, and have a very valuable responsibility of changing the minds and transforming the society. This is the terrain between visible and invisible, where personal tone and private sensibility merge to create a genre with exclusion who has the power to deeply influence and transform the world through their powers of academic essay and writing. “I find writing so hard, so arduous, so painful” (Olson, 2003 p 30) this is the confession of Mary Field Belenky who is engaged in a purely academic –intellectual writing which deals with “research that’s embedded in Interpretive-descriptive process”(Olson,p.30), where her major goal is to articulate clearly the understandings based on her interpretation of the content and writing is very integral to this process. Intellectualism as an expression of writing has become exclusive to the point that very few selective people are engaged this form of writing which is hard work and critical thinking, lacking appeal to mass audience in the present modern world. BIBLIOGRAPHY Allison, Dorothy. Survival is Least of My Desires. An Extract from “Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature. Firebrand Books, 2005. Allison, Dorothy. Mama. An Extract from Trash. Firebrand Books, 1988. Aristotle. Poetics. Browning, Robert. Dramatic Monologue. Fra Lippo Lippi Cullen, Shay. The Power and The Poverty, Causes of Child Abuse. 1992 Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature. Second Edition Eisenstein, H. Radical Feminism, Humanism and Womens Studies. 1983. Quoted in Innovative Higher Education Journal. Springer Netherlands, 2004 Graves, Robert. (1964) The Greek Myths-I. 3rd Edition. Penguin Books. Goodman, W. R. Practical Criticism (2005) New Kitab Mahal Urdu Bazaar Lahore Drabble, Margaret. The Ice Age. Peck, John & Coyle, Martin. Literary Terms and Criticism. MacMillan Education Limited, Houndmills. Silver, Marisa. The Passenger. A story in the collection Babe in Paradise. 2000. Quoted in “More Stories We Tell” 2004. Singh, T. History of English Literature Vedder, Clyde B., Koenig Samuel& Clark, Robert E. Criminology. Holt, Rinehart and Wilson. New York, 1976. Woods, Alan. Marxism versus feminism - The class struggle and the emancipation of women, 2001 Woolf, Virginia. (1925) Mrs. Dalloway. Zaidi, M. H. (2002) Romance in Medieval Literature. Moosa Publications, Urdu Bazaar Lahore http://www.arrtreads.org/romancegenrestudy.htm Olson and Worsham, Garry A. and Lynn (2003). Critical Intellectuals on Writing. New York: Sunny Press. http://www.questia.com/read/101229251 http://www.identitytheory.com/etexts/poetics.html http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-AnglSxLit.html Read More