Is Literature, out of all the arts, where the creative process is the least cared about?

For me, it's more I jerk off to the idea of taking my alphawrite to the top of a Japanese tower and spending an hour or two to writing on the observation deck as the sun sets.

And the fact that I'll never do so hurts.

>That one kid who brought a typewriter to class and the professor told him in the middle of class to never bring it again because of how distracting it was to have "TACK-TACK-TACK-TACK-DING" going every 5 seconds

It wasn’t always “God” but there was a large emphasis on the idea of inspiration during the Romanic era, yes.

It’s during that time that you see a revitalization of the “Muse” concept made popular in greater Europe during the Renaissance.

Basically every novel and poetry collection would have an introduction explaining what specific inspiration the author had during their writing.

What’s the right question then, Bernard?

Why did I wish to read this book in the first place?

>Every writer cares about how they write, but they couldn’t give less of a fuck about how other writers write.

FTFY

Since the middle of renaissance period, basically, there has been a preoccupation in art theory with the hands of the artist. In printmaking you see this shift in aesthetic ideals most clearly. From the 1500s to the renaissance, most prints were 'designed' by a certain artist and engraved or carved by a craftsman. When the hands became an object of interest--due to contemporary art critics noticing trademark techniques of certain artists in painting and sculpting--you see a move away from the division of labour in printmaking and a general trend towards etching instead of woodcarving or engraving (both of which generally require a skilled craftsman to perform).

The reverence for the "hand" of the artist cannot apply to writing as we understand it today. Despite many manuscripts being originally written by hand, by the time you see writing being understood as an art on its own--not one related to biblical study--the printing press is the primary method of producing written works. The printing press nullifies any reverence for the "hand" of the artist, and instead of focusing on the creative process in writing, scholarship mostly focuses on the literary devices employed by the author. Documentaries aren't as likely to exist to expilcate these literary devices because they require background information in literary studies in order to understand them in context. The techniques of visual arts, however, can be easily represented visually in a documentary, and make for a much more engaging viewing experience.

When you say hands do you mean the abstract idea of originality (I.e. this painting was done by the artists own hands as opposed to being a copy) or do you mean a literal obsessions with the hands of the artist as the true art of creation?

The latter. Ideas of authenticity don't come into play until much later. There were no real penalties, either socially or legally, for pirating or copying someone's work until the early 1700s. Shakespeare's plays, for example, "steal" from a variety of different sources, both contemporary and ancient. Some of the speeches his characters deliver are stolen whole hog and turned into blank verse. Painters were commonly trained in schools by outright copying the paintings of others, and these copies were often sold by the teachers for profit. Even once artists were established you can see plenty of characters and poses that have been stolen from the works of other artists, but that doesn't seem to have worried critics until the 18th and 19th century.

The hands of the artist were seen as the vehicle for artistic creation. The reason why etchings took off among collectors of artistic prints was because it allowed the artist to effectively replicate their drawings en masse, as the etching process is done by the removal of an acid-resistant base from a copper plate with a stylus, and then placing the copper plate in an acid path. The flow of the lines as drawn by the artist would be identical to those done in drawing. The force and technique required to engrave a copper plate with a burin results in shorter lines compared to drawing or etching. Because of the ease of etching the the resulting print, as done by the artist, represents their technique done by their hands, whereas the engravings represent the artists' design but the engravers' hands.

I hope that answers your question. To sum up, they weren't worried about copying when it comes to composition or subject matter as much as they were worried about the work being done by such-and-such an artist's hand.

Interesting. Do you have any further reading on the subject or books you pulled these theories from?

rude

Nice links user, thanks.

Smart but wrong

If it's smart but wrong, it isn't smart.

my fellow faggot, read Roland Barthes, he cares a lot, especially in his last book. 1000 pages of thought about the creative writing process

>Structuralism

You can have a voice-off narrator.

Then it’s an overdone audio book with a useless visual component

I think this documentary on Delillo's Libra dramatizes the creation of a book best:

youtube.com/watch?v=0DTePKA1wgc

The sensibility of his work is captured visually, and interviews with the author and voice overs with excerpts from the book give context.