Random cultural history question. Many years ago, in the early 90's, I was a college student. One of my dorm mates was a tortured writer. She wore a lot of black and was obsessed with her own suffering as a sign of genius. There seems to be a long tradition of this type depressed writer/ artist/ creative type. Why do many young people think that suffering and depression will make for better art? When did this start? Do other cultural traditions have similar archetypes? Is this some sort of catholic guilt or protestant work ethic thing? There is probably a simple explanation for the origin of this phenomenon, but I have no idea. Any cultural or art historians out there with suggestions?
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7 comments:
If I had to guess, I would say its a legacy of 19-century high Romanticism, particularly Byron.
I instantly thought of Sylvia Plath when I read your post - This article discusses a "Sylvia Plath" effect. Seems there may be a "real" link between creativity and introspection, creativity and depression, and creativity and bipolar disorder.
I think some people fake it for whatever reason - the "it's cool to be sad" idea - but I think there's also an underlying neurobiological link.
Oh it definitely predates Sylvia. I thin of Proust myself, but perhaps that's because my mother, in the height of one her barely functional depressions she said something about modeling after him. I quipped back that as soon as she started whipping out the writing again she could think about taking to bed permanently.
I thought of 19-century Romanticism as well. I wonder if there is some connection to changing attitudes towards death. My understanding is that at some point in European history attitudes towards death changed and there was much more of an emphasis on mourning the lost of the individual and memorializing them. This must have happened sometime around or after the Enlightenment.
Your comment made me think of this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Madrid-Purgatory-Sixteenth-Century-Cambridge-History/dp/0521529425/sr=8-5/qid=1162477104/ref=sr_1_5/103-7180619-1359028?ie=UTF8&s=books
I read an excerpt of it a long time ago, and thought it was pretty interesting, but I had no interest in shelling out $55 for my own copy. Perhaps your uni library might have it, if there's some reason for you to pursue this question further...
Sigh, let's try that again.
From Madrid to Purgatory.
the truth is that the artist are in effect looking for GOD, un judgemental un critical acceptance that is not found in our ego centered homogenized society that is nothing more than a re hash of junior high school eccept the play ground is bigger,they have been given a gift that every one has but few are willing to harness,artist are children thrown in to pit of snakes and forced to be differrent to surrvivw they have a moral core that nags them with truth and the search for it ,the compulsion to paint or whatever they do isnt an attempt to capture humanity or social commentary its a secret perfect language between them and god but they have a bad habit of confusing god with all the other hipocritcal authority figures and they reject mainstream
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