Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must in the first place be afforded; it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.
Interpretation
Invention is about shaping existing ideas and materials rather than creating something entirely new from nothing.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's quote emphasizes the idea that true invention doesn't arise from a complete absence of thought or material but rather from the ability to organize and mold the chaotic elements that already exist. Inventions build upon prior concepts and resources, taking form and refining them rather than initiating them from a place of absolute emptiness.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the creative process in art and invention.
The instructor can scarcely give sensibility where it is essentially wanting, nor talent to the unpercipient block. But he can cultivate and direct the affections of the pupil, who puts forth, as a parasite, tendrils by which to cling, not knowing to what - to a supporter or a destroyer.
What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.
I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.
Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.
Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.' - Frankenstein
I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.
The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstance whether created by others or by one's own human failings. They are the only consistent art in the United States which constantly remind us of our limitations while encouraging us to see how far we can actually go. When understood in their more profound implication, they are a corrective, an attempt to draw a line upon man's own limitless assertion.
I'm nothing else but an artist, I'm sure, and delighted to be.
I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.
I'm known as a light artist. But rather than be someone who depicted light, or painted light in some way, I wanted to have the work be light.
From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,_x000D_ A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room_x000D_ And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up_x000D_ From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That's all_x000D_ There was to it.
I try all night to play a pretty note.
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