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From Stephen Elliott
Rumpus contributor Andrew David King interviews Austin Kleon at The Kenyon Review’s blog.
Kleon has a knack for altering a text to make it his own, and talks at length about creative originality:
“I guess what I’m interested in is why ‘originality’ is a trait we look for in art at all.
...moreDisillusioned by the task of writing truly original? John Barths writes on the difficult task to write something new and distinctly untold, which is apparently one that is perpetually and historically daunting.
“Originality, after all, includes not only saying something for the first time, but re-saying (in a worthy new way) the already said: rearranging an old tune in a different key, to a different rhythm, perhaps on a different instrument.
...moreWhy do so many of us, as readers or maybe as a society, assume that originality springs forth out of nothing, although at the same time we understand that every idea, every story, has a precedent?
...more