Zeitgeist Writing, Catching a Genie in a Bottle and the Quest for the Holy Grail.
What do you want to achieve?
Not the easiest, or most comfortable, question when applied to anything but a particularly difficult one in the written word. Today, I'm going to ignore the mundane and get straight into the really ambitious stuff. Let's pretend that it is our intention to emulate literary greats such as Bill Shakespeare or Charles Dickens.
How do you go about emulating them or even copying them, if you're happy with that? Transcribing and analogising their plots and characters is an obvious start but if you think for a moment, these literary greats are far more than the sum of these things. For a start, my friend Bill used to have a cheeky ear piercing and you don't get that from the plot of Macbeth. Rock'n'Roll!
Seriously though, I would posit that they captured the spirit of an age and immortal aspects of the spirit of humanity. Capturing either of these things could be considered seizing the Holy Grail or clutching a Genie in a Bottle. However, it is easy to confuse an aspect of the spirit of man with its entirety. Our modern media is fond of declaring politicians or world leaders, a Zeitgeist but they are only a reflection of part of the spirit of an age. Governments, at any time, only ever embody our wants. From a literary point of view, we want more. To capture the spirit of an age we must appreciate not only what people want but how they feel about those wants which are left unfulfilled.
We'll look at Shakespeare again and it seems apparent that he captured much of the spirit of his age in questioning. Questioning and speculation which left his audience facing a precipice of uncertainty. Many people see diverse and profound things when their very nature is questioned.
Questioning is a primitive part of us, which kicks in for most people when they are toddlers. As we grow into adult life, many of us realise that there are too many questions, or that they are too difficult, so we stop asking. Successful visionaries do not. Many great persons have been tormented by their inability to stop questioning, or step away from apparently unanswerable questions.
So careful what you wish for because the Holy Grail isn't necessarily great fun to stare at.
My new book; Digital Wax is out very, very, soon. Please check it out if you have appreciated any of my blogs.
Endlessly, Perpetually, Something,
L-J
*holding his chin contemplatively, your author fades to black.
The good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism, nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism. - From; 'Chaos or Community?' By Martin Luther King
