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Question Prompt.
a) Compare and contrast the perspectives of the authors on the characteristics of great creative writing and art in general. What does Freud mean when he asserts that “phantasies” need an “incentive bonus” in order for the audience to “enjoy our own[the creative writer’s] day-dreams without self-reproach or shame”? How do you understand Plato’s distinction between “genius” and “wisdom”?
b) In your opinion, which author accounts more to the characteristics of great creative writing and art? In your explanation you should put details and one or more examples from poems, songs, films and even from your own creative writings.
Length: min. 700, max. 1000 words.
Duration: 2 hours (including reading the question and the passages).
My Answer:
What are creative writings?—this is a question easy to answer since there are an abundance of great works that we can name, such as ‘The Star Wars Series’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’, or ‘Yesterday.’ However, how such creative artworks are produced is a question that is hard to answer. The two given authors, Freud and Plato, respectively endeavors to address this argument in the passages [1] and [2]. To point out their perspectives shortly in the first place, Freud says that a creative writing comes with a specific technique which he refers to as ‘an incentive bonus’; this statement could largely be understood as his accentuating the importance of elaborate skills in producing creative works. On the other hand, Plato says creative works are born out of the authors’ inspiration, rather than their cognitive process, which thus could be considered as his stressing the significance of ‘genius,’ something somewhat supernatural and not done by the conscious manipulation of human beings. In the subsequent paragraphs, I will first explain the two authors’ perspectives on creative writing, secondly comparing & contrasting each side, and lastly asserting my point of view on which author’s understanding seems to be closer to the key element of creative writing.
Firstly, “an incentive bonus” mentioned by Freud can be viewed as an aesthetic device that breaks down the barriers between each human ego. In passage [1], he says that there are “the barriers between each single ego and the others.” These barriers prevent readers from fully appreciating the “phantasies” prsented by authors. The barricades here mentioned seem to be the prejudie or bias that lies behind the innermost part of our spirit. Freud’s understanding is, hence, that in order for readers to fully identify with the phantasies that authors grant, it is necessary to “bribe them by the purely formal—aesthetic—yield of pleasure offered in the presentation of his phantasies,”—this means you have to deconstrut the prejudice and bias of each single ego in the first place, so that they can willingly relish your phantasy in a comfortable manner. Given that the word, aesthetic, is adopted, it is certain that “an incentive bonus” inherently harbors aesthetical features. Therefore, such things as the beautiful covers of books, the eloquent speech of authors, or the high level of literary sophistication with which the book is written can be examplary of what Freud speaks of as “an incentive bonus.” For instance, to prove my point of view, suppose that there are two people before you, one of which is a handsome guy with a nice suit on him, and the other of which is a beggar with squalid impression. Now, each of them respectively tries to offer you their own “phantasies.” Whose story would you listen to? Perhaps, most people would opt for listening to the story of the gentleman with a nice outfit because, judging by his appearnce, he looks like a person with sanity, common sense, and a bit of wit that may suffice to tell you a mesmerizing—or at least interesting—story. Once your tensions, namely prejudices and biases, in the mind are liberated in such a way, you thenceforth will be able to be deeply immersed in the “phantasies” that the gentleman provides with, feeling the deeper excitement, without “shame” and “the feeling of repugnance.”
Also, it seems that the distinction of Plato between ‘wisdom’and ‘genius’ in [Passage 2] is to defferentiate the cognitive manipulation of human will and the unintelligible power—namely, inspiration—that lies behind our subconsciousness. The narrator says that he visited a famous politician “thought to be wise by many” and the poets with “some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings.” However, he in turn confesses that he could find nothing exquisite from them, which seems incompatible with the greatness of their creations. Politicians can be regarded as artists of a kind since such works as giving a speech in front of the mass, pursuading citizens to follow their political ideal can be deemed to be the creative work that artists engage in. Therefore, to Plato’s understanding, it is inspiration or something supernatural and not done by the human consciousness but subconsciousness that bears great masterpieces—in other words, creative writing—, since in terms of wisdom, both the politican and poets were all inferior to their creations, which is inexplicable unless they result from human inspiration. Consequently, Plato concludes that the poets and politician are those people who conceitedly boast things that do not belong to them, considering himself better accordingly.
Secondly, the two perspectives presented by Freud and Plato are incompatible with each other. Freud asserts the success of creative writing is contingent largely on the adoption of the technique he refers to as “an incentive bonus;” Plato, conversely, states it is not “wisdom,” but “genius,” or inspiration that is the determining factor of creative writing or art in general. The “wisdom” Plato mentions can be interpretated as “an incentive bonus” that Freud advocates in the passage [1]. However, his assertion that artistic masterpieces are all derived rather from pure inspiration than the cognitive manipluation of human being does not dispose creative artworks acquired in the aforementioned manner of the high level of sophistication. To recap my statement, even though each perspective is respectively against each other, they share a key element in common, which is the high level of sophistication. This is corroborated by what Plato says in the passage [2]. There, he says “I said to myself, you will be detected; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are.”—this indicates that the great poems of those poets who he afterwards considers to be inferior to him feature exceptional qualities that lead Plato, one of the greatest philosophers, to expect to learn something new from their authors. Therefore, even though the key component of creative writing that each standpoint accentuates may vary and oppose each other, they collectively hold the common conception that the high level of sophistication with which masterpieces are created matters.
Lastly, to my understanding, Freud’s approach seems to be closer to creative writings and arts than that of Plato. When being a highschool student, I would learn how to compose classical music. There are lots of schemes and techniques that help composers to write a music, as in the sonata formate, the traditional musical sturcture consisting of expositon, development, and recapitulation. When you come up with a tiny idea or motive, these devices help you to develop them into a complete music. This is possible only when I am aware of such techniques, and technically, most of the masterpieces of classical music are written in accordance with such schemes. For instance, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, even though Beethoven himself tried in this piece to be unshackled from the conventional sturcture, employed the sonata formate that most of his predecessors adopted, such as Mozzart and Hayden. Artists are not passive machines that just wait for inspiration popping up in their mind, rather they are active precursors who enthusiastically explore what new element they may be able to make use of in their artworks.
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