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CyberVoices | Module One
1
Definition of Community Instead of my attempting to define something outside of my discipline (literature), let me direct you to an informative overview of the concept of community. Please visit the following link and read the first four pages of this document, ending with “Community - Norms and Habits.” Community A few key points from the above online article: Communities can be formed based on: - geographical location - interests, occupations, beliefs - communion or attachment (the idea of “spirit of community”). There can be perceptible borders (such as geographical boundaries - a river or road), or even linguistic “borders,” that is, everyone in an area speaks the same language. There are, however, more “symbolic” borders, borders perceived by people, perhaps as an example, people believing in the same religion. Regardless of the basis on which a given community is formed, there are behaviors associated with a community. In other words, there is a social network established among members of the community, as well as a set of social norms and habits associated within a given community. What we will be dealing with this semester is how a group of people with like interests - thinking, writing, creating - forge communities, whether setting geographic boundaries to their community or establishing a specific time and place to meet on a regular basis - what I refer to as “real space” writers’ communities. The second major type of community doesn’t meet on a farm, at a library, or in a cafe; instead, there are no geographic or time boundaries to this type of community - what I refer to as “cyberspace” (Internet) writers’ communities. Our first look at writers’ communities deals with some of the “real space” communities, both historical writers’ communities and current writers’ communities.
Historical Writers’ Communities While writing, for most writers, is a lonely, isolating activity, many writers, throughout history, have sought out others of like interests and concerns in order to verbalize their fears and desires and/or to recite their writing in the presence of an audience in order to receive some feedback. These groups of people with like interests and vocations have, throughout the centuries, either created loosely developed communities, meeting occasionally in local libraries or coffee shops, or moving to a place where they live and work together.
CyberVoices | Module One
2
At any rate, talk we all did, it’s true, till all hours of the night. Not always, of course, about the meaning of good -- sometimes about books or painting or anything that occurred to one -- or
What follows is a listing of a few of the many historical literary communities: Literary Salons of Europe Salons were organized primarily by wealthy women, who wished to further their literary and artistic interests, as well as social influence in 17th and 18th France, particularly in Paris. One of the first salons was established in 1610 b Madame de Rambouilett at an elegantly decorated house on Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre, where members of court, writers, philosophers, painters congregated. The Literary Club (Doctor Johnson’s Circle) Established in London in 1764 by the essayist, poet, lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson, writers, actors, and painters met and discussed issues of the day, as well as creative endeavors. Among the more famous members of this group included: Adam Smith, the economist, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, and James Boswell, friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson. The Literary Club is still in existence. Painting of Dr. Samuel Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Established by the poet and artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1848, this collection of painters, poets, and writers all wished to portray nature as it is, not in its perfected form, a form expected by the academic artistic rules of the time. Definition of Pre-Raphaelites, as well as links to their paintings The Bloomsbury Group Probably one of the best known literary communities - certainly of the Victorian Period “Bloomberries,” included: - Virginia Stephen Woolf (writer) - her husband, Leonard Woolf - her sister, Vanessa Stephen Bell - Clive Bell (artist)
CyberVoices | Module One
3
- John Maynard Keyes (economist) - E. M. Forster (writer). This group met each Thursday evening in the bohemian section of London, known as Bloomsbury. The group began some time between 1904 and 1905. A side note: Virginia Woolf and her husband, Leonard, even established a publishing company - Hogarth Press which still publishes today. List of Bloomsberries, with links to specific information about each member. The Lost Generation These ex-patriate Americans - including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound - congregated at Parisian cafes, apartments, and bookstores after World War I. Lost Generation member Ernest Hemingway visited Sylvia Beach’s bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. Beat Poets After World War II, groups of writers such as - Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghetti - found solace in each others’ company, both in San Francisco and New York City, away from an American society and political environment which these writers found increasingly bland, paranoid, and abhorrent. Some background material, as well as list of Beat Poets.
Current Writers’ Communities Now, onto the last portion of this lecture - a look at some “real space” writers’ communities, which also happen to have websites. The following writers’ communities are places one can visit in order to take advantage of a peaceful, isolated environment and/or a place a writer can be among others of like interests. Appel Farm Arts and Music Center | Upper Pittsgrove, New Jersey Byrdcliffe Arts Colony | Woodstock, New York Delaware Valley Poets | Lawrenceville, New Jersey Djerassi Resident Artists Program | San Francisco, California Hudson Valley Writers’ Center | Sleepy Hollow, New York Poets’ House | New York, New York
CyberVoices | Module One Wellspring House | Ashfield, Massachsuetts Wisdom House | Litchfield Connecticut
4
1
Definition of Community Instead of my attempting to define something outside of my discipline (literature), let me direct you to an informative overview of the concept of community. Please visit the following link and read the first four pages of this document, ending with “Community - Norms and Habits.” Community A few key points from the above online article: Communities can be formed based on: - geographical location - interests, occupations, beliefs - communion or attachment (the idea of “spirit of community”). There can be perceptible borders (such as geographical boundaries - a river or road), or even linguistic “borders,” that is, everyone in an area speaks the same language. There are, however, more “symbolic” borders, borders perceived by people, perhaps as an example, people believing in the same religion. Regardless of the basis on which a given community is formed, there are behaviors associated with a community. In other words, there is a social network established among members of the community, as well as a set of social norms and habits associated within a given community. What we will be dealing with this semester is how a group of people with like interests - thinking, writing, creating - forge communities, whether setting geographic boundaries to their community or establishing a specific time and place to meet on a regular basis - what I refer to as “real space” writers’ communities. The second major type of community doesn’t meet on a farm, at a library, or in a cafe; instead, there are no geographic or time boundaries to this type of community - what I refer to as “cyberspace” (Internet) writers’ communities. Our first look at writers’ communities deals with some of the “real space” communities, both historical writers’ communities and current writers’ communities.
Historical Writers’ Communities While writing, for most writers, is a lonely, isolating activity, many writers, throughout history, have sought out others of like interests and concerns in order to verbalize their fears and desires and/or to recite their writing in the presence of an audience in order to receive some feedback. These groups of people with like interests and vocations have, throughout the centuries, either created loosely developed communities, meeting occasionally in local libraries or coffee shops, or moving to a place where they live and work together.
CyberVoices | Module One
2
At any rate, talk we all did, it’s true, till all hours of the night. Not always, of course, about the meaning of good -- sometimes about books or painting or anything that occurred to one -- or
What follows is a listing of a few of the many historical literary communities: Literary Salons of Europe Salons were organized primarily by wealthy women, who wished to further their literary and artistic interests, as well as social influence in 17th and 18th France, particularly in Paris. One of the first salons was established in 1610 b Madame de Rambouilett at an elegantly decorated house on Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre, where members of court, writers, philosophers, painters congregated. The Literary Club (Doctor Johnson’s Circle) Established in London in 1764 by the essayist, poet, lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson, writers, actors, and painters met and discussed issues of the day, as well as creative endeavors. Among the more famous members of this group included: Adam Smith, the economist, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, and James Boswell, friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson. The Literary Club is still in existence. Painting of Dr. Samuel Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Established by the poet and artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1848, this collection of painters, poets, and writers all wished to portray nature as it is, not in its perfected form, a form expected by the academic artistic rules of the time. Definition of Pre-Raphaelites, as well as links to their paintings The Bloomsbury Group Probably one of the best known literary communities - certainly of the Victorian Period “Bloomberries,” included: - Virginia Stephen Woolf (writer) - her husband, Leonard Woolf - her sister, Vanessa Stephen Bell - Clive Bell (artist)
CyberVoices | Module One
3
- John Maynard Keyes (economist) - E. M. Forster (writer). This group met each Thursday evening in the bohemian section of London, known as Bloomsbury. The group began some time between 1904 and 1905. A side note: Virginia Woolf and her husband, Leonard, even established a publishing company - Hogarth Press which still publishes today. List of Bloomsberries, with links to specific information about each member. The Lost Generation These ex-patriate Americans - including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound - congregated at Parisian cafes, apartments, and bookstores after World War I. Lost Generation member Ernest Hemingway visited Sylvia Beach’s bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. Beat Poets After World War II, groups of writers such as - Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghetti - found solace in each others’ company, both in San Francisco and New York City, away from an American society and political environment which these writers found increasingly bland, paranoid, and abhorrent. Some background material, as well as list of Beat Poets.
Current Writers’ Communities Now, onto the last portion of this lecture - a look at some “real space” writers’ communities, which also happen to have websites. The following writers’ communities are places one can visit in order to take advantage of a peaceful, isolated environment and/or a place a writer can be among others of like interests. Appel Farm Arts and Music Center | Upper Pittsgrove, New Jersey Byrdcliffe Arts Colony | Woodstock, New York Delaware Valley Poets | Lawrenceville, New Jersey Djerassi Resident Artists Program | San Francisco, California Hudson Valley Writers’ Center | Sleepy Hollow, New York Poets’ House | New York, New York
CyberVoices | Module One Wellspring House | Ashfield, Massachsuetts Wisdom House | Litchfield Connecticut
4
