2. Weisstein takes up the phenomenon,
‘creativity treason’ ( trahison creatrice )
with special reference to Escarpit who
speaks of “recoveries” or “resurrections”
which help a work to overcome the social,
spatial or temporal barriers and “achieve
surrogate successes with audience other
than those originally contemplated”.
Ex. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe which are popular among
children, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in
Wonderland attracts adult readers.
3. The intentions of the author and the readers
have no coincidence, but, result in a totally
different product.
Creativity treason is unavoidable in the of
translation. It is more clear when the recasting
of the model is not limited to mere translation.
Anna Balakian points to a chain of ‘creativity
treason’ seen in the nineteenth-century
tradition. While speaking about the influence of
German Romanticism of French liyerature, she
views that the earliest signs of Romanticism
brought about in the fiction of Victor Hugo and
Stendhal ( Marie-Henri Beyle)- (French) were due
to the impact of Madame de Stael’s book on
Germany
4. Anna Balakian finds fault with her fellow-
writers for not paying attention to the
qualities of mysticism, the marvellous and
the grotesque.
The contemporary writers superficially
imitated these qualities, which happens to
be reception, and not influence.
The influence manifested itself much later in
the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, leader of
the French Symbolist movement, who was
attracted by the poems and short stories of
Edgar Allan Poe, the American writer.
5. Baudelaire found out Poe’s emphasis on the
exceptional in nature. Poe himself was
affected by German Romanticism through his
reading of the English poet and critic
Coleridge, who had an original acquaintance
with German philosophy and literature.
The reception of German romanticism into
French literature had to cross and re-cross
the Atlantic ocean in order to become a real
influence in the poetry of Baudelaire.
7. Weisstein also remarks that in analogy ( a
relationship of resemblance ) or parallel
studies, there can be no question of
influence in the proper sense, but only of
“affinities” or “pseudo” influences.
The term ‘source’ must be taken to mean
the thematic models, subjects which furnish
material but are, themselves, nonliterary.
8. Semantically, there exists a relationship between
influence and source, both terms relate to the
flow, the ‘source’ being the origin of that flow,
and the influence its goal.
Holinshed’s Chronicles and Plutarch’s Lives are
bonafide sources.
The source itself is literary
For instance, Aeschylus and Sophocles serve both
as models and principal sources for all the
Prometheus dramas, and Oedipus and Antigone
plays, respectively.
Valmiki’s Ramayana is the source and model to
different Ramayanas
9. Weisstein takes up Claudio Guillen’s
argument that the term ‘influence’ has no
validity, as it presupposes a dearth of
creativity and poetic imagination.
He wishes to retain it as a fragile link
between a source and an original work of
art.
To Guillen, ‘influence’ cannot be in the
realm of aesthetics, but only in psychology.
10. Weisstein takes Guillen’s point and says that, “in
a study of literary influence the works as well as
the authors must be accounted for, although
generally greater emphasis will be placed the
works themselves”.
Thus he steers ( to pursue a course of action )
clear that influences take place only between
literary works or only between authors, as
Guillen asserts.
No literary work can influence another without a
human intermediary.
11. Guillen in his article “The Aesthetics of
Influence Studies in Comparative Literature”
poses the question: “When speaking of
influences on a writer, are we making a
psychological statement or a literary one?”
Author ‘A’ has influenced by author ‘B’, is
that the work B1 has been influenced by A1.
According to Guillen we mix the
psychological and the literary.
12. Between A and his influencing work A1, the
psychology of the creative process works
In separating A1 from the author B, the
psychology of the receptive process operates
Between B and B1, the psychology of the
creative process works, enriched by
reception
In an ideal condition A1 and B1 should have
an aesthetic interaction
13. In LC, the problem of influence- whether it is
psychological (between authors) or aesthetic (
between works)- has long been a subject of
controversy.
During the 19th century, scholars tried to solve
the problem by simply removing the barrier
between art and psychology
In the process of an influence the step from
author A to his work A1 cannot be equated with
either the step from work A1 to author B or the
step from author B to his work B1
14. The casual theory is based on the mechanistic
conception of the creative process and denies the
synthetic role of the imagination.
Imagination plays a crucial role in the creative
process, by synthesizing the disparate elements
together.
As Coleridge states, it “dissolves, diffuses (spread
through air/water), dissipates (disperse/vanish), in
order to recreate”.
15. Guillen rejects the casual solution and opts
Benedetto Croce’s popular theory that the
work of art is unique, independent and has a
soul of its own.
