EMOTA · European Myth(s) of the Artist: A Self-constructed Fantasy

European Myth(s) of the Artist: A Self-constructed Fantasy

This project investigates the workings of myth and identity-making based on a European heritage formed in the period of Romanticism. Its aim has been to shed light on the complex issue of how nationally accepted identities can be forged systematically within a European context and with Europe’s common heritage as a cohesion agent and art as the means to achieve this. It uncovers how artists smoothed away contradictions of national and transnational identities and consciously constructed a new trans-nationally oriented identity lying in the intersection between self-image and the various images of the “other,” an identity which could only be termed “European”. Identity formation and promotion of self-image in a social setting through literature are intricate procedures implicating social, cultural and psychological mechanisms. The expansion of the press and its availability to a large portion of the public at the beginning of the 19th century offered a platform for the first “celebrities” to handle their own image (one of the most striking cases being the poet George Gordon Byron). Because it is in the Romantic era that we find the roots of this merging of national and trans-national elements in a conscious effort led by the artists to construct and promote a new identity for themselves, the historical interest of this project is expanded to encompass the contemporary and complex issue of European identity in the present time. There are a number of general conceptual frameworks involved in the various definitions of myth. As a literary term, myth denotes a specific style of narrative discourse, but in its broader meaning it is also charged with contradictory connotations, mainly concerning its validity and authority in relation to other forms of discourse, ranging all the way from the expression of a primordial truth, to a fabricated story, a misconception, or even a lie. In this project two different notions of myth are being used: a) the classical myth; that is the cultural European heritage bequeathed from ancient times through texts which the artists are using as a basis to ground their newly forged self-image upon (i.e. Pygmalion, Prometheus, etc.), and b) myth as a social construct based on an array of narratives of varying authoritative value. The myth of the artist relies often on the combination of those two notions. The following research questions relating to the construction of the myth(s) of the artist have been investigated: i. why does it become an imperative for the romantic artist to create his own myth about himself? ii. how does he achieve constructing and establishing his new identity? and iii. how does this self-image function (where does it draw its authority from, what impact does it have on his social self, how is it embedded within a larger, i.e. national and European context, etc.)? Because of the overall imaginative and fictive character of identity as a construct, the hypothesis of this study was that it is its aesthetic value that makes the self-constructed image into a dominant narrative of self-perception, influencing decisively the way the person is perceived by others, and accounts for its power as a “myth”. A case in point is Byron’s self-staged entry into the literary scene and how he managed to construct an image that was blending his real self with his fictional protagonists. Byron began forging his poetic identity with his attack on prominent poets of his time. As a reaction to the poor reception of his first poems, Byron wrote a satire in the mode of Juvenal entitled British Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), attacking contemporary poets and critics alike. His next poetical step, Hints of Horace (1811), an imitation of Horace’s “De Arte Poetica”, involved the quasi-adoption of yet another a distinguished poetic figure, renowned for the role of regulator on poetical matters, drawing once more on the classic tradition. This strategy brought into play an important notion in the forging of artistic identity, namely the myth of the “genuine Bard”. This myth has its source in antiquity and is being reactivated by Byron through his appropriation of the figure of Horace in his poem. This myth of the “genuine Bard” will become a constant notion for the romantics [Byron apostrophizes Truth in a plea to inspire a “genuine Bard” who he then would be able to admire: “Truth! rouse some genuine Bard, and guide his hand / To drive this pestilence from out the land”. (687-688)]. Both Juvenal and Horace belong to a tradition on which the entire European literary foundations rest. Byron’s aim was here to endow himself with a quality that transcends the narrow bounds of his present time and his confined English space. This opening up of the artistic identity as transnational and timeless was to be used as a foundation for the construction of the myth of the European artist. The works of the next period are marked by a new strategy, i.e. the dramatization of Byron’s real life events. This is done in two different ways: one is the public performance of a private persona where Byron is supposedly being “himself”, and the other is the shaping and consolidation of what is going to become known as the “Byronic hero” [An amalgam of Byron’s fictional heroes and his social image in the eyes of the public that Byron encouraged.]. In the first category there are poems such as “Fare the Well” and “A Sketch of Private Life”, in the second we have the dramatic poem Manfred (1816-1817). This strategy worked in relation to the previous one, while putting emphasis on the consolidation of his own personal myth. In The Prophecy of Dante (1819) Byron goes a step further and asks his audience to view the poem as a communication from Dante himself. Both poets exiled, both misunderstood by their country. Byron indirectly puts forth the example of Dante’s country that has already regretted the exile of the poet and is now proud to call him a national poet, as the assurance that this will also happen in his own case. This national prominence is, however, used here only as an identity construction strategy. It goes against Byron’s general creed concerning the poet which was that “A great poet belongs to no country; his works are public property, and his Memoirs the inheritance of the public” [Medwin, Thomas. Conversations of Lord Byron with Thomas Medwin, Esq. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1832, v]. This statement reinforces the ties of the poet to his audience but effaces the national boundaries that were made so prominent in Byron’s attempt to use the great renown of the Italian poet to his own benefit. This ambivalent identity that is created at the intersection between the national and the transnational presents the artist as a special individual who can express the universal man. At the same time, the cultural heritage on which Byron draws is clearly marked as European, with both the Greco-Roman tradition and the prominent national figures of different European countries (such as Dante, or Goethe) being appropriated. The artist is thus presented as a direct descendant of a line that encompasses the best of all that European artistic history has to offer. All the works composing the corpus of this study (George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Honoré de Balzac, Théophile Gautier) were chosen with a view to present a representative account of the image of the artist in Romantic poetry and fiction, but also according to their contribution in the making of the myth of the artist in both the national and the European frame. The aim was to trace the different strategies in constructing the myth of the artist, and attempt to uncover the reasons behind them, allowing for a better understanding of the various and interconnected factors that come into play in the construction of the myth of the artist. Other strategies analysed in this study are the following: Setting the author´s persona; the romantic preface; the heroic pose; artists as protagonists; the danger of madness and annihilation of self; implicating the public as a shaping factor; the artist as traveller and pilgrim; the artist as “target” figure; clothing and physical image. The monograph that will result from the project will demonstrate that language and fiction have a decisive role in the construction of a feeling of community and of belonging to a specific group, which is often expressed as personal, univocal and even instinctive, while it in fact owes a lot to an assemblage of aspects drawn together, with a specific rhetoric, narrative techniques and images that determine how we define and see ourselves. The work is now at the stage of draft and will need approximately 6 months for completion of the publishable manuscript.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union