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Inspiration (from the Latin ''inspirare'', meaning "to breathe into") is an unconscious burst of
creativity Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed literary ...
in a literary, musical, or visual art and other artistic endeavours. The concept has origins in both Hellenism and
Hebraism Hebraism �hiːbreɪz(ə)mis a lexical item, usage or trait characteristic of the Hebrew language. By successive extension it is often applied to the Jewish people, their faith, national ideology or culture. Idiomatic Hebrew Hebrew has many idio ...
. The Greeks believed that inspiration or "
enthusiasm In modern usage, enthusiasm refers to intense enjoyment, interest, or approval expressed by a person. The term is related to playfulness, inventiveness, optimism and high energy. The word was originally used to refer to a person possessed by G ...
" came from the muses, as well as the gods
Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
and Dionysus. Similarly, in the Ancient Norse religions, inspiration derives from the gods, such as Odin. Inspiration is also a divine matter in
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
poetics. In the
Book of Amos The Book of Amos is the third of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Old Testament (Tanakh) and the second in the Greek Septuagint tradition. Amos, an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, Harris, Stephen L., ''Understanding the Bible''. Palo Alto ...
the prophet speaks of being overwhelmed by God's voice and compelled to speak. In Christianity, inspiration is a gift of the Holy Spirit. In the 18th century philosopher John Locke proposed a model of the human mind in which ideas associate or resonate with one another in the mind. In the 19th century, Romantic poets such as
Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
and Shelley believed that inspiration came to a poet because the poet was attuned to the (divine or mystical) "winds" and because the soul of the poet was able to receive such visions. In the early 20th century, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud believed himself to have located inspiration in the inner psyche of the artist. Psychiatrist
Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phil ...
's theory of inspiration suggests that an artist is one who was attuned to
racial memory In psychology, genetic memory is a theorized phenomenon in which certain kinds of memories could be inherited, being present at birth in the absence of any associated sensory experience, and that such memories could be incorporated into the geno ...
, which encoded the
archetype The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ot ...
s of the human mind. The Marxist theory of art sees it as the expression of the friction between economic base and economic superstructural positions, or as an unaware dialog of competing ideologies, or as an exploitation of a "fissure" in the ruling class's ideology. In modern psychology inspiration is not frequently studied, but it is generally seen as an entirely internal process.


History of the concepts


Ancient models of inspiration

In Greek thought, inspiration meant that the poet or artist would go into ecstasy or ''furor poeticus,'' the divine frenzy or poetic madness. He or she would be transported beyond his own mind and given the gods' or goddesses own thoughts to embody. Inspiration is prior to consciousness and outside of skill (''ingenium'' in Latin). Technique and performance are independent of inspiration, and therefore it is possible for the non-poet to be inspired and for a poet or painter's skill to be insufficient to the inspiration. In
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
poetics, inspiration is similarly a divine matter. In the ''
Book of Amos The Book of Amos is the third of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Old Testament (Tanakh) and the second in the Greek Septuagint tradition. Amos, an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, Harris, Stephen L., ''Understanding the Bible''. Palo Alto ...
'', 3:8 the prophet speaks of being overwhelmed by God's voice and compelled to speak. However, inspiration is also a matter of revelation for the prophets, and the two concepts are intermixed to some degree. Revelation is a conscious process, where the writer or painter is aware and interactive with the vision, while inspiration is involuntary and received without any complete understanding. In Christianity,
inspiration Inspiration, inspire, or inspired often refers to: * Artistic inspiration, sudden creativity in artistic production * Biblical inspiration, the doctrine in Judeo-Christian theology concerned with the divine origin of the Bible * Creative inspirat ...
is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Saint Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
said that all scripture is given by inspiration of God (
2 Timothy The Second Epistle to Timothy is one of the three pastoral epistles traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle.. Addressed to Timothy, a fellow missionary, it is traditionally considered to be the last epistle he wrote before his death. Alth ...
) and the account of Pentecost records the Holy Spirit descending with the sound of a mighty wind. This understanding of "inspiration" is vital for those who maintain
Biblical literalism Biblical literalism or biblicism is a term used differently by different authors concerning biblical interpretation. It can equate to the dictionary definition of literalism: "adherence to the exact letter or the literal sense", where literal me ...
, for the authors of the scriptures would, if possessed by the voice of God, not "filter" or interpose their personal visions onto the text. For church fathers like
Saint Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is comm ...
, David was the perfect poet, for he best negotiated between the divine impulse and the human consciousness. In northern societies, such as Old Norse, inspiration was likewise associated with a gift of the gods. As with the Greek, Latin, and Romance literatures, Norse skalds were inspired by a magical and divine state and then shaped the words with their conscious minds. Their training was an attempt to learn to shape forces beyond the human. In the Venerable Bede's account of
Cædmon Cædmon (; ''fl. c.'' 657 – 684) is the earliest English poet whose name is known. A Northumbrian cowherd who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch (now known as Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy of St. Hilda, he w ...
, the Christian and later Germanic traditions combine. Cædmon was a herder with no training or skill at verse. One night, he had a dream where Jesus asked him to sing. He then composed "
Cædmon's Hymn ''Cædmon's Hymn'' is a short Old English poem attributed to Cædmon, a supposedly illiterate and unmusical cow-herder who was, according to the Northumbrian monk Bede (d. 731), miraculously empowered to sing in honour of God the Creator. The p ...
", and from then on was a great poet. Inspiration in the story is the product of
grace Grace may refer to: Places United States * Grace, Idaho, a city * Grace (CTA station), Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Line, Illinois * Little Goose Creek (Kentucky), location of Grace post office * Grace, Carroll County, Missouri, an uninc ...
: it is unsought (though desired), uncontrolled, and irresistible, and the poet's performance involves his whole mind and body, but it is fundamentally a gift.


Renaissance revival of ''furor poeticus''

The Greco-Latin doctrine of the divine origin of poetry was available to medieval authors through the writings of Horace (on Orpheus) and others, but it was the Latin translations and commentaries by the neo-platonic author Marsilio Ficino of Plato's dialogues ''
Ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conv ...
'' and (especially) '' Phaedrus'' at the end of the 15th century that led to a significant return of the conception of ''furor poeticus''.Grahame Castor. ''Pléiade Poetics: A Study in Sixteenth-Century Thought and Terminology.'' Cambridge University Press: 1964, pp. 26–31. Ficino's commentaries explained how gods inspired the poets, and how this frenzy was subsequently transmitted to the poet's auditors through his rhapsodic poetry, allowing the listener to come into contact with the divine through a chain of inspiration. Ficino himself sought to experience ecstatic rapture in rhapsodic performances of Orphic-Platonic hymns accompanied by a lyre. The doctrine was also an important part of the poetic program of the French Renaissance poets collectively referred to as ''
La Pléiade La Pléiade () was a group of 16th-century French Renaissance poets whose principal members were Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Jean-Antoine de Baïf. The name was a reference to another literary group, the original Alexandrian Pleiad ...
'' (
Pierre de Ronsard Pierre de Ronsard (; 11 September 1524 – 27 December 1585) was a French poet or, as his own generation in France called him, a " prince of poets". Early life Pierre de Ronsard was born at the Manoir de la Possonnière, in the village of ...
, Joachim du Bellay, etc.); a full theory of divine fury /
enthusiasm In modern usage, enthusiasm refers to intense enjoyment, interest, or approval expressed by a person. The term is related to playfulness, inventiveness, optimism and high energy. The word was originally used to refer to a person possessed by G ...
was elaborated by
Pontus de Tyard Pontus de Tyard (also Thyard, Thiard) (c. 1521 – 23 September 1605) was a French poet and priest, a member of "La Pléiade". Life He was born at Bissy-sur-Fley in Burgundy, of which he was ''seigneur'', but the exact year of his birth is ...
in his ''Solitaire Premier, ou Prose des Muses, et de la fureur poétique'' (Tyard classified four kinds of divine inspiration: (1) poetic fury, gift of the Muses; (2) knowledge of religious mysteries, through
Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...
; (3) prophecy and divination through
Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
; (4) inspiration brought on by Venus/Eros.)


Enlightenment and Romantic models

In the 18th century in England, nascent psychology competed with a renascent celebration of the mystical nature of inspiration. John Locke's model of the human mind suggested that ideas associate with one another and that a string in the mind can be struck by a resonant idea. Therefore, inspiration was a somewhat random but wholly natural association of ideas and sudden unison of thought. Additionally, Lockean psychology suggested that a natural sense or quality of mind allowed persons to see unity in perceptions and to discern differences in groups. This "fancy" and "wit," as they were later called, were both natural and developed faculties that could account for greater or lesser insight and inspiration in poets and painters. Imagination, the Romantics argued, is a tool to see things that the intelligence is blind to. The musical model was satirized, along with the ''
afflatus is a Latin term used by Cicero in , ("The Nature of the Gods") and has been translated as "inspiration". Cicero's usage was a literalising of "inspiration", which had already become figurative. As "inspiration" had come to mean simply the gathe ...
,'' and "fancy" models of inspiration, by Jonathan Swift in '' A Tale of a Tub.'' Swift's narrator suggests that madness is contagious because it is a ringing note that strikes "chords" in the minds of followers and that the difference between an inmate of
Bedlam Bedlam, a word for an environment of insanity, is a term that may refer to: Places * Bedlam, North Yorkshire, a village in England * Bedlam, Shropshire, a small hamlet in England * Bethlem Royal Hospital, a London psychiatric institution and the ...
and an emperor was what pitch the insane idea was. At the same time, he satirized "inspired" radical Protestant ministers who preached through "direct inspiration." In his prefatory materials, he describes the ideal dissenter's pulpit as a barrel with a tube running from the minister's posterior to a set of bellows at the bottom, whereby the minister could be inflated to such an extent that he could shout out his inspiration to the congregation. Furthermore, Swift saw fancy as an antirational, mad quality, where, "once a man's fancy gets astride his reason, common sense is kick't out of doors." The divergent theories of inspiration that Swift satirized would continue, side by side, through the 18th and 19th centuries.
Edward Young Edward Young (c. 3 July 1683 – 5 April 1765) was an English poet, best remembered for ''Night-Thoughts'', a series of philosophical writings in blank verse, reflecting his state of mind following several bereavements. It was one of the mo ...
's ''Conjectures on Original Composition'' was pivotal in the formulation of Romantic notions of inspiration. He said that genius is "the god within" the poet who provides the inspiration. Thus, Young agreed with psychologists who were locating inspiration within the personal mind (and significantly away from the realm either of the divine or demonic) and yet still positing a supernatural quality. Genius was an inexplicable, possibly spiritual and possibly external, font of inspiration. In Young's scheme, the genius was still somewhat external in its origin, but Romantic poets would soon locate its origin wholly within the poet. Romantic writers such as
Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
(''The Poet''), and Percy Bysshe Shelley saw inspiration in terms similar to the Greeks: it was a matter of madness and irrationality. Inspiration came because the poet tuned himself to the (divine or mystical) "winds" and because he was made in such a way as to receive such visions. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's accounts of inspiration were the most dramatic, and his '' The Eolian Harp'' was only the best of the many poems Romantics would write comparing poetry to a passive reception and natural channelling of the divine winds. The story he told about the composition of ''
Kubla Khan ''Kubla Khan'' () is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to ''Kubla Khan'', the poe ...
'' has the poet reduced to the level of scribe. William Butler Yeats would later experiment and value
automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spiri ...
. Inspiration was evidence of genius, and genius was a thing that the poet could take pride in, even though he could not claim to have created it himself.


Modernist and modern concepts

Sigmund Freud and other later psychologists located inspiration in the inner psyche of the artist. The artist's inspiration came out of unresolved psychological conflict or childhood trauma. Further, inspiration could come directly from the
unconscious Unconscious may refer to: Physiology * Unconsciousness, the lack of consciousness or responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli Psychology * Unconscious mind, the mind operating well outside the attention of the conscious mind a ...
. Like the Romantic genius theory and the revived notion of "poetic phrenzy," Freud saw artists as fundamentally special, and fundamentally wounded. Because Freud situated inspiration in the unconscious mind, Surrealist artists sought out this form of inspiration by turning to dream diaries and automatic writing, the use of
Ouija boards The ouija ( , ), also known as a spirit board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the Latin alphabet, the numbers 0–9, the words "yes", "no", occasionally "hello" and "goodbye", along with various symbols and grap ...
and found poetry to try to tap into what they saw as the true source of art.
Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phil ...
's theory of inspiration reiterated the other side of the Romantic notion of inspiration indirectly by suggesting that an artist is one who was attuned to something impersonal, something outside of the individual experience:
racial memory In psychology, genetic memory is a theorized phenomenon in which certain kinds of memories could be inherited, being present at birth in the absence of any associated sensory experience, and that such memories could be incorporated into the geno ...
, or a 'Psychopoetry' experience.Illuminating the Word: Visualisation of Poetic Experiences Through Filmmaking, International Journal of the Arts in Society, Vol. 2, No. 5

/ref> Materialism, Materialist theories of inspiration again diverge between purely internal and purely external sources. Karl Marx did not treat the subject directly, but the Marxist theory of art sees it as the expression of the friction between economic base and economic superstructural positions, or as an unaware dialog of competing ideologies, or as an exploitation of a "fissure" in the ruling class's ideology. Therefore, where there have been fully Marxist schools of art, such as
Soviet Realism Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ...
, the "inspired" painter or poet was also the most class-conscious painter or poet, and "
formalism Formalism may refer to: * Form (disambiguation) * Formal (disambiguation) * Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary * Formalism (linguistics) * Scien ...
" was explicitly rejected as decadent (e.g.
Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screen ...
's late films condemned as "formalist error"). Outside of state-sponsored Marxist schools, Marxism has retained its emphasis on the
class consciousness In Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to ...
of the inspired painter or poet, but it has made room for what
Frederic Jameson Fredric Jameson (born April 14, 1934) is an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. James ...
called a ''"political unconscious"'' that might be present in the artwork. However, in each of these cases, inspiration comes from the artist being particularly attuned to receive the signals from an external crisis. In modern psychology, inspiration is not frequently studied, but it is generally seen as an entirely internal process. In each view, however, whether empiricist or mystical, inspiration is, by its nature, beyond control. An example of a modern study on inspiration is one that was conducted by Takeshi Okada and Kentaro Ishibashi, published in 2016 in the multidisciplinary journal, '' Cognitive Science.'' In this three-part study, groups of Japanese undergraduate art students were observed to determine whether copying or simply musing upon example artworks that served as their inspiration would increase their creative output. The results of the first and second experiment revealed that copying artwork enabled the students to produce creative drawings that were qualitatively different, but only when the example—the inspiration—featured a style that was unfamiliar to the students. The third experiment revealed that only musing upon the unfamiliar inspiration produced the same effect as copying it. Okada and Ishibashi suggest that these unfamiliar examples were able to facilitate the creativity of the students because they challenged the students' perspectives on drawing. They admit, however, that it is unclear whether their results can be generalized to professional artists as well, but they cite examples of artists, namely Pablo Picasso and
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...
, who extensively imitated the work of other artists, which might suggest that "imitation is an effective driver of creativity, even for experts."


See also

*
Afflatus is a Latin term used by Cicero in , ("The Nature of the Gods") and has been translated as "inspiration". Cicero's usage was a literalising of "inspiration", which had already become figurative. As "inspiration" had come to mean simply the gathe ...
, the Romantic concept of inspiration *
Automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spiri ...
*
Divine spark The divine spark is a term used in various different religious traditions. Gnosticism In Gnosticism, the divine spark is the portion of God that resides within each human being. The purpose of life is to enable the Divine Spark to be released f ...
* Epiphany (feeling) *
Genius (literature) The concept of genius, in literary theory and literary history, derives from the later 18th century, when it began to be distinguished from ''ingenium'' in a discussion of the ''genius loci'', or "spirit of the place". It was a way of discussing es ...
, the development of the concept of the genius from daemon to innate gift *
Glossolalia Speaking in tongues, also known as glossolalia, is a practice in which people utter words or speech-like sounds, often thought by believers to be languages unknown to the speaker. One definition used by linguists is the fluid vocalizing of sp ...
(or speaking in tongues) * Muses, the classical sources of inspiration


References

*Brogan, T.V.F. "Inspiration" in Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, eds., ''The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 609-610. {{DEFAULTSORT:Artistic Inspiration Aesthetics Poetics Creativity Positive mental attitude