CREATIVE SPIRIT. TOWARD A BETTER WORLD

Summary

       “Blackburn has collected 17 essays united by the theme of the creative spirit in literature and life. Whether discussing the picaresque novel or revolutionary discoveries in neuro-psychology, these learned but accessible essays investigate the importance of the creative writer and literature, particularly in a society in which materialism and anti-intellectualism are rampant.”-- Library Journal

Comments

        "Creative Spirit is an astonishing tour de force of considerations and evaluations from a thoughtful and well-informed mind. Professor Blackburn’s commentaries are not only cogent and incisive, they are also highly accessible, a refreshing discovery in a world of post-modern pseudo-intellectual gibberish that seems to confound and confuse far more than it illuminates and explains. These essays represent a remarkable compendium of commentary on the state of
American letters, on where we are, where we’ve been, and, most significantly, where we seem to be going as a culture and as a literary presence. The ties and connections Blackburn makes
between the ‘now of now’ and the traditions and established canons of the past demonstrate the vital importance of continued studies of what has gone before, not strictly in the Eliotian sense of  ‘tradition and the individual talent,’ but rather in a noble attempt to glean and retain that which is valuable and to build on it. This is an intellectual banquet offering well reasoned and well wrought considerations of a fertile and well educated mind, one that has been stimulated and inspired by artistic excellence rather than shocked and prodded by faddish trend. It is a rare accomplishment, one that should be required reading by any writer, teacher of writers, or anyone else interested in the state of the literary endeavors of our culture." -- Clay Reynolds, Director of Creative Writing, University of Texas at Dallas.

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Contents

1. A Writer’s Quest for Knowledge. The Colorado Quarterly, 24 (1975): 67-81

2. Experience, Imagination and Revolt. Writers’ Forum, 13 (1987): 1-7

3. The Long Habit of Living

4. On Teaching Creative Writing. In Riverrun, 5 (1976): 24-34

5. Character as Style. In Frank Waters: Man and Mystic, edited by Vine Deloria, Jr. (Athens: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1993), 106-121

6. Myth and the Picaresque Novel. New Mexico Humanities Review, 5:1 (1982): 23-35

7. The Pícaro in American Literature. In Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs, Vol.2 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), 983-991

8. Higher Elevations. In Higher Elevations: Stories from the West. A “Writers’ Forum” Anthology, xi-xv

9. The Interior Country. In The Interior Country: Stories of the Modern West, ix-xvii

10. A Western Renaissance. Western American Literature, 29:1 (May 1994): 51-62

11. Faulkner and Continuance of the Southern Renaissance. In Faulkner and the Southern Renaissance, edited by Doreen Fowler and Ann Abadie (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1982), 158-181

12. On Reading Frank Waters. Studies in Frank Waters, 15 (1993): 55-69

13. Waters and Modern Fiction. Studies in Frank Waters, 12 (1990): 77-96

14. Archetypal Promise from Apocalyptic Premise. In A Sunrise Brighter Still, 112-131

15. The Self as a Force for Human Survival. In Conflict and Arms Control, edited by Paul R. Viotti (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1986), 268-282

16. Peace Stars. Studies in Frank Waters, 8 (1986) 68-98

17. A Theodicy of Human Love. The High Plains Literary Review, 10:2 (Fall 1995): 118-125

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