Lecture
1. Creativity as a means of self-expression. Every person strives for self-expression, because it is precisely
through this that one can manifest one's individuality. Literary creativity is bound up with the art of
the word. Whoever has chosen the path to themselves through the word must resolve two fundamental
problems: that of psychological development and that of penetrating the semantics and energetics of the word. All of this
demands intense psychological labor.
In literary creativity, the word quite often becomes the building material for the personality.
In creation, the artist must be true to themselves, which fosters full-fledged self-expression.
2. Creativity as cognition (self-cognition). Theorists and practitioners of literature have long pointed
to its cognitive function. And most readers see precisely this as literature's purpose.
In this connection, the motivation for literary creativity seems understandable: to convey, within
a literary work, certain knowledge, to play the role of teacher, mentor, prophet. Creative thinking
is an indispensable condition for creative activity. In this complex psychological process,
self-cognition holds important significance.
People inclined toward verbal creativity take up the pen because they strive for
self-cognition, self-deepening, without pausing to consider what it will bring them — the joy of discovery or the bitterness of
disappointment. In coming to know themselves, the creative individual comes to know people and the world.
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Creativity as competition (rivalry). The twentieth-century Dutch culturologist Johan
Huizinga, in his work Homo Ludens, uses the theory of competition to reveal the essence of the process by which
art arises. According to this theory, ancient forms of culture attest that
the origins of certain kinds of art lie in the striving to win primacy in a contest. This means that competitiveness
has been embedded in the art of the word from its very beginning. It is entirely natural, then, that the literary creativity
of aspiring writers is sometimes psychologically motivated by their striving to surpass
the mastery of others. Creativity carries within it the spirit of competition. Hence the disregard for literary
authorities, canons, and conventional forms. Yet in this too lies the spirit of literature's constant renewal,
its development, its expansion, and the changeability of its forms and means. The manifestation of rivalry in literature is seen in discussions
of pressing, at times irritating, aesthetic and social questions, in literary polemics,
and in individual disputes attesting to differing views on questions important to it.
3. Creativity as a will to power. Every person strives for self-expression and self-
affirmation. F. Nietzsche, in his treatise Thus Spoke Zarathustra, formulated this as the will to power.
What some call the will to creativity, he saw as a goal, something higher and more perfect.
Even the will to live, he held, is subordinate to the will to power. From this standpoint, literary
creativity is a means of self-affirmation, one manifestation of the will to power. The artistic word attests to
the writer's choice of a means for exercising their will over others. The will to power emerges
especially vividly in works with a strong tendentiousness («ideological charge»). Literary creativity
provokes and develops in the creative person a complex of inferiority — in such works
writers voice a multitude of complaints, reproaches, and pained appeals. The author, as it were, imposes on the reader
the obligation to sympathize with him, to hear him out, to pity him. The claim that a writer, through their
work, draws readers' attention and makes them experience empathy amounts to the fulfillment of his will to
power, to self-affirmation among others by the means he commands most skillfully and completely. In order that
readers' interest in his creations not wane, the writer is compelled to assert himself through ever more interesting,
more accomplished, more unusual works, which in turn stimulates his creative development.
4. Creativity as the displacement of psychic complexes. A particular passion can develop into a neurosis,
which psychologists and psychiatrists call a complex. Such a complex also affects literary
creativity, shaping its thematic and figurative movement. Under these circumstances, creativity can
be regarded as liberation from the neurosis, its displacement by means of a mentally constructed
virtual reality, which leads to a distinctive psychological purging of obsessive
thoughts, feelings, and images. For a writer who has suffered oppression from some fact or event,
who has felt resentment or inner discomfort, the creative act relieves that state of mind, even though
nothing may actually change. In this sense literary creativity becomes a saving act,
restoring balance to the artist's psyche.
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5. Creativity as pleasure (hedonism). Literary creativity is not among the most readily accessible
of human pleasures. Many writers regard the creative act as an intense form of suffering,
a particular kind of stress affecting physical and psychological well-being. Creativity is hard labor of the soul and
the intellect, yet some irresistible force draws the artist to it. For many it is a sweet
torment, a source of pleasure in the process of mastering words and their meanings. The highest pleasure,
a burst of positive emotion, is brought by creative inspiration. The striving for pleasure is an egoistic
impulse, directed above all at self-satisfaction. Sometimes, after finishing a
work, writers express dissatisfaction with what they have created. This is a natural moment in psychic life.
A psychological feature of creative pleasure is that one wants to experience it again and again.
This spurs the artist's individual creativity onward. The author immerses himself in the creative element even when
he has met with failure, disappointment, or doubt. He strives once more for that captivating and stirring
elevation that opens up an entire world.
6. Creativity as flight from reality. It is impossible to escape reality, though some people try
to achieve this by resorting to the literary word. The history of literature also knows the opposite position:
taking up the pen in order to open others' eyes to «actual reality». Such writers do not
accept those who «flee» reality, who hover in an invented world, immersing themselves in an aestheticism detached
from life. Connected with this are attempts to create another, desired world — illusory, perhaps,
yet pleasant and refined. A model of the artistic world built from real elements embodies
an individual understanding of being, representing the complexity and uniqueness of a particular personality.
Flight from reality is not simply provoked by dissatisfaction with it. Most often it is caused by
a psychic crisis arising from the collision of idealized notions (formed in childhood or youth)
about the world with the dynamics and essence of real processes, relationships, and facts. Such flight is motivated by
an instinct of self-preservation, directed as an aversion to «actual reality», which is not identical
with the notion of «how things ought to be».
Self-check questions
1. Discuss the problem of creativity as cognition and self-cognition.
2. Discuss the problem of creativity as competition.
3. Discuss the problem of creativity as a will to power.
4. Discuss the problem of creativity as the displacement of psychic complexes.
5. Discuss the problem of creativity as pleasure.
6. Discuss the problem of creativity as flight from reality
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