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Like my letter of inquiry, which inquired into the silly-serious continuum (or binary opposition), and sought to deconstruct and reconfigure it as a means to the end of defining my style, concerns, and aesthetic; this statement of purpose will demonstrate a similar function, which is (a) to dissolve the creative-critical opposition as exhibited by the majority of graduate programs, be they MFA or PhD; and (b) to illustrate the actual congeniality that exists when the creative and the critical are employed conjunctively. The latter of which should demonstrate the compatibility between a program like this, and a person like me.
First order of business: to eradicate the myth that creative enterprise should be extrinsic to critical inquiry in an antiquated, capital-R Romantic kind of way; along with the myth that critical inquiry is an uncreative, near-scientific and methodical approach to literature. Whether these myths are observed at the graduate level deserves probing; however, at the undergraduate level I've noticed this casual yet subtle divide, beginning with the existence of two distinct degrees in English—i.e. writing and literature—and the resultant variations in their respective requirements; along with certain sentiments I've encountered among my fellow students; my so-called peers. For example, I heard more than once (and, well, more than twice [and, yeah, more than thrice]) a Writing major say, “I don’t like/want to read, I like/want to write,” or, most simply, “I don’t read, I write.” (I've also heard concerns over reading’s disruptive potential when it comes to creativity and originality, however farcical) Somewhat dissimilarly, yet in a neighboring key, I've heard Lit majors (and even Lit professors) bemoan this blanketed/generalized notion re Writing majors which, obviously, even I am guilty of; but I’m convinced that these assertions are rooted, perhaps, in some inferiority-complexed need for domination, or superiority.
My point in all of this: we should all step back and realize we’re playing on the same team. That is, this competitive divide between the creative and the critical is overly and strangely reminiscent of the gradual, post-Enlightenment demarcation between the humanities and the sciences. To reiterate: we’re on the same team; and so, we should start acting like it.
How is the creative critical, and vice versa? Like any art form that chooses to be mimetic and transfiguring, poetry has the capacity to participate in the pervasive reflexivity of contemporary life in an exceedingly postmodern (or post-postmodern) world; and as the former dependent clause implies, art doesn't occur in a vacuum, that is, interaction and interpretation are actively involved, or passively so if one refuses to admit and, thereby, fails to embrace the role of influence. In other words, by actively interacting with other/older literary texts, one’s perception, conception, and interpretation of the world is invariably molded by said texts, which will undoubtedly be diffused into and through one’s work and, therefore, contribute to the ongoing discussion from time immemorial.
All of this is, perhaps, convoluting a hackneyed conception of the art-artist-art dynamic; however, it isn't hackneyed because it’s commonplace or overused in academia: somehow it skipped that step in becoming trite and went straight to being overlooked unless articulated, and even then it would be relegated to banality. Instead, it’s been reduced to pithy, structuralist maxims like, for example, “Write what you know.” What I propose is that instead of passively engaging what Harold Bloom referred to as the anxiety of influence, one must actively and explicitly revel in what Jonathan Lethem recently posited to be the ecstasy of influence. That is, an artist must be willingly capable of articulating their art—or, artisticating (forgive the neologism)—in terms of influence, and have the capacity to critique and explicate their own work by placing it alongside, or outside of, the grand discussion that has seemingly been forgotten; because, let’s face it, there’s a daunting and undeniable chance that others will never even consider critiquing and explicating your work.
Much of the same could be said of the critical, to some extent. However, influence in critical writings tend to be somewhat inherently obvious in the form of bibliographies, references, etc. Despite its explicitness, criticism is hardly objective and scientific; it too is a creative enterprise with aesthetic and ideological concerns, which is to say, it has personality. A critic will always exhibit personality as long as s/he is capable of making choices. Debates in metaphysics aside, these choices are rarely derived from pure, pinpointable premises that have been consciously asserted as truths; and, much less, from logically sound arguments of which the aforementioned premises have been tested and verified. In other words, because of the human element, criticism will always be biased toward aesthetic and ideological concerns and, thus, will rationalize and justify arguments through rhetorical and creative means, which means by making convincing connections.
Convincing connection-making requires a similar skill in discernment to that of writing poetry—choosing one word over another, for example—such that the desired effect is accomplished, be it the pathos of a poem or the effective elucidation of criticism which, again, makes it convincing. This concept of criticism could be likened to the act of looking up at the stars and discovering new constellations in a game of connect the dots. Like creative endeavors—particularly the critical approach to creative writing mentioned above—it necessitates an awareness and understanding of the constellations one already knows or should know; thereby allowing the intricacies that would otherwise be absent from these constructions. However, this practice is not in the business, so to speak, of creating new stars; nor is it interested in determining universals. Instead, its primary concern is unveiling the near-infinite and potentially endless amount of possibilities, be they linguistic, (multi-) cultural, historical (New Historicism), sociological, psychological (Freudian/Lacanian), economic (Marxism), or sexual (Feminism/”Queer” Theory)—to name a few—and thence applying them to the vast network that is literary history.
And so, my intended and, perhaps, overstated purpose is to write both creatively and critically while accepting their interchangeability/malleability as inherent and necessary to their respective processes: to write creatively is to write self-consciously (not insecurely, however) and critically aware of one’s place in an ongoing dialogue between history and the present; and to write critically is to make previously unexplored connections that are plausible and, therefore, convincing—which, itself, is a creative endeavor contingent on the critic’s personality, his or her preexisting knowledge (of the stars [so to speak]), his or her aesthetic and ideological descriptions/prescriptions, and a general self-awareness of all the aforementioned.
It has been, and is, my goal/purpose to also assert that these two assumptive tautologies, with their independent variables being the creative/poet and the critical/critic, can undergo tautological substitution while maintaining their soundness/validity. I will spare you the logical notation, but the resultant is as follows:
To write [critically] is to write self-consciously (not insecurely, however) and [creatively] aware of one’s place in an ongoing dialogue between history and the present; and to write [creatively] is to make previously unexplored connections that are plausible and, therefore, convincing—which, itself, is a [critical] endeavor contingent on the [poet’s] personality, his or her preexisting knowledge (of the stars [so to speak]), his or her aesthetic and ideological descriptions/prescriptions, and a general self-awareness of all the aforementioned.
Is this statement—or the statement that precedes it—vulgar and untrue? If so, I've no business being a part of your program.
