The Creative Process by James Baldwin

Vocabulary terms and key concepts from James Baldwin's 'The Creative Process' (1962), focusing on the artist's relationship with society and self.

James Baldwin

The author of the essay 'The Creative Process' from the 1962 publication Creative America, Ridge Press.

Aloneness

A state the artist must actively cultivate, described as being like the aloneness of birth, death, suffering, or love, which most men avoid because it can paralyze action.

The Artist's Role

To illuminate the darkness and blaze roads through the 'vast forest' of the human wilderness so that the world remains a 'more human dwelling place.'

Purpose of Society

To create a bulwark against inner and outer chaos in order to make life bearable and keep the human race alive.

Tradition

Evolved systems that people suppose to have existed from 'before the beginning of time' and which provide the basis for their identity.

Panic

The reaction that occurs when it is suggested that people can or must live without the traditions that give them identity, seen in places like New Orleans and Algeria.

Higher level of consciousness

The only hope for minimizing human damage both in the present and the future.

The Artist's 'Laboratory'

A metaphor for the artist being their own test tube and laboratory, distinguishing them from politicians, legislators, educators, and scientists.

Visible Reality

A surface state that the artist must recognize hides a deeper reality upon which all action and achievement rest.

Maturity

The measure for nations and men of how well prepared they are to meet and use changes for their health.

Social Creatures

The state humans adopt because they cannot live any other way, though it requires modifying or suppressing internal forces that menace security.

Prohibition of Aloneness

A historical necessity in America to conquer the continent, which prevented the discovery that life is 'tragic, and therefore unutterably beautiful.'

The New World

A concept representing the opportunity to move beyond 'Old World concepts of race and class and caste' to create a new society.

Lover's War

The nature of the artist's struggle with society, meant to reveal the 'beloved' to himself and make freedom real.