I’ve taken a break from reading about Walden to read Lewis Hyde’s The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. This is an intriguing book that examines the place of creativity in our modern capitalist culture. At the center of Hyde’s argument is the idea that there is a fundamental difference between Gifts and Commodities—the first circulates freely, creates bonds, and belongs to the realm of Eros (“relationship, bonding, shaping into one”) while the second is always exchanged for a calculated value, creates separation, and belongs to the realm of Logos (“differentiating into parts”).

It is the assumption of this book that a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, that works of art exist simultaneously in two “economies,” a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift there is no art.

Hyde builds his case by examining a range of ideas and practices including folk tales, tribal gift practices, arranged marriage, the history of usury, and the writings of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound.

One idea that recurs is the cycle of gifts—once received, a gift has to move on in order to remain a gift. This will either be the original gift itself, or a new gift, inspired by the original. I’m oversimplifying quite a bit; Hyde spends a lot of time on this idea, covering it from many angles. In the opening chapter of Part II he writes:

The imagination has the power to assemble the elements of our experience into coherent, lively wholes: it has a gift.

 

As artist…must submit himself to what I shall be calling a “gifted state,” one in which he is able to discern the connections inherent in his materials and give the increase, bring the work to life….

 

Once an inner gift has been realized, it may be passed along, communicated to the audience. And sometimes this embodies gift—the work— can reproduce the gifted state in the audience that receives it. Let us say that the “suspension of disbelief” by which we become receptive to a work of the imagination is in fact belief, a momentary faith by virtue of which the spirit of the artist’s gift may enter and act upon our being. Sometimes, then, if we are awake, if the artist really was gifted, the work will induce a moment of grace, a communion, a period during which we too know the hidden coherence of our being and feel the fullness of our lives.…any such art is itself a gift, a cordial to the soul.

This is a beautiful idea. I know that I’ve experienced this state many times, the moment of knowing the “hidden coherence” of my being and feeling the “fullness” of my life. It’s the best description of those transcendent aesthetic moments that I’ve read. Thinking of these moments as a gift from the artist, a gift that the artist received and is passing along, is profoundly satisfying and inspiring.

This has particular resonance for me right now, as I work on Not Less Than the Good. My experience reading Walden for the first time was a lot like receiving a gift. So much in it spoke to me very deeply, connecting to thoughts and ideas and desires I was only dimly aware of in myself. Like any gift should, it has inspired in me a desire to pass the gift along, to share this with others. The way that I know how to do this is with music. I could as easily think (and talk) about this sequence as inspiration, which it also is. However, thinking about it as part of an ongoing cycle of Gifts feels more spiritual, more profound, more satisfying.