Inspiration and Technique
Ancient to Modern Views on Beauty and Art
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9466827 |
|---|---|
| Authors | P Murray (0000-0001-7078-0952) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 321-323 |
| Publication date | 2010-03-29 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/aesthj/ayq009 |
| OpenAlex | W2079714717 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
Inspiration is a deeply unfashionable subject in literary theory today and, with the notable exception of Timothy Clark's The Theory of Inspiration (Manchester, 1997), questions about the relationship between artists and their work are generally deemed unworthy of study in academic circles. And yet inspiration has been a central theme in the discourse of authorship from ancient Greece to modern times. Since Homer first invoked the Muse in the opening line of the Iliad, poets have spoken of their poems as emanating from somewhere beyond themselves. Inspiration has been variously configured as, for example, the gift of the Muse, the breath of God, the inexplicable workings of the unconscious mind, or the unmediated force of the inner voice at work in the automatic writing of Surrealist texts. But whether interpreted in religious or secular terms, inspiration accounts for the unconscious, involuntary nature of the creative process, attested by poets and writers since the dawn of time, or at any rate of Western literature. And although the experience of inspiration does not in itself guarantee quality (even Enid Blyton is said to have heard voices), there is nevertheless an implicit link between inspiration and value, an assumption that inspiration confers prestige on the recipient and authority on the work produced
Aesthetics · Art · Beauty · Epistemology · Internal monologue · Literature · Narrative · Period (music · Poetry · Prestige · Subject (documents · Theme (computing · Unconscious mind · Value (mathematics · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Philosophy · Visual Culture and Art Theory
| Citations per year | 0.18 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2016 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |