Romantic and collaborative authorship--Rhetoric in a New Key

Though I am typically not a collaborative writer in the way one typically views collaboration (two or more people working on a singular document), I do collaborate on an indirect level (using sources to “enter a conversation” and bringing bits of conversation or people I know into a piece of prose, just to name a couple examples), so Lunsford and Ede’s essay “Rhetoric in a New Key: Women and Collaboration” struck me with the unfair practices of punishing collaboration.

As a creative writer, no one tells a story alone. Writers write what they know and often use instances gained from other writers through workshops or in social situations. Writers often use real life situations or people to help flesh out characters and situations in a story, whether that story is fiction or nonfiction. In this sense, I see a model of collaboration, though less direct than the commonly identified model of collaboration that stands up in opposition against the “romantic writer.”

In this essay, we again encounter the dialogic (loosely structured) and hierarchical (firmly structured) models of collaboration. We are also told that when surveyed (and this time women in the MLA were surveyed), most responded that much of their writing was done alone and most collaborative writing involved grants (277). In their research, Lunsford and Ede uncovered those collaborative practices in writing lacked a connection to theoretical or pedagogical issues (277). To combat this idea, the authors gave a number of examples of collaborative writing and how these instances were punished for being collaborative. The essay also discusses how the dialogic model of collaboration is often enacted in subtle ways, which may explain the tendency to view writing as originating from a singular authorship.

I have to admit, however, that as a creative writer and a person who prefers to work alone, leaving the romantic writer image is difficult. At times I try to explain to myself that this model has been taken to the extreme in some instances since I firmly believe those 19^th century writers, and everyone before and after, have collaborated on some level. I look at how the creative writing workshop tends to predominantly function where collaboration occurs as writers exchange ideas in attempts to make a piece of writing better. With these examples, I almost want to argue that the “romantic writer” has always been a myth, albeit a potentially productive one, as it has helped to articulate the idea of a creative genius and helped creativity become valued in industrialized societies that tend to value production over people. And I do believe in the potential of human creativity and originality, even in a society that may prefer to scoff at such an idealistic notion where “every idea has been taken”. So I do think there are some benefits to having the notion of singular artists and authorship, even if it is not completely realistic.

Questions:

·      Do you feel the focus on just women in this essay creates an overly “feminized” approach to writing where collaboration would more quickly be understood and valued? And do you think this feminized view of collaboration is reductive in some way? (I’m thinking of Geoff Sirc’s recent article in CCC that was briefly discussed in class where he responded to peer review in what we would term an aggressive and masculine way. I’m also thinking about how composition is often feminized and if/how this is reductive. But I also may not be explaining myself very well.)

·      Can you think of an instance where collaborative writing was either punished or perhaps valued less when compared to another piece that was written with sole authorship?