Writing Under the Influence: The Scholarly Writer at Work

The deepest and eternal nature of man, upon whose evocation in his hearers the poet is accustomed to rely, lies in those impulses of the mind which have their roots in a childhood that has since become prehistoric.

—Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900, p. 247)

Poets tend to think of themselves as stars because their deepest desire is to be an influence, rather than be influenced, but even in the strongest, whose desire is accomplished, the anxiety of having been formed by influence still persists.

—Harold Bloom, A Map of Misreading (1975, p. 12)

Freud is alluding to Homer in the passage above, as he does a number of times in The Interpretation of Dreams. Using scenes from The Odyssey and examples of his own anxiety dreams, Freud is analyzing "feelings of being inhibited, of being glued to the spot, of not being able to get something done" (p. 238), the kind of anxiety that is also the subject of this paper, which explores an aspect of scholarly writing and publishing that paralyzes many authors. Here is what they say about their struggles to write under the influence of intellectual predecessors as well as of the ghosts of personal and familial histories: "It's all been said before." "I'm sure someone has already written about this." "I have an idea, but I'm not even sure where I learned it." "How do I get started on a list of references?" "Who am I to be writing about_____?" "Who wants to hear from me?" It sometimes seems to me—as a college professor of writing and literature, a psychoanalytic scholar, and a clinician who specializes in writing impasses—that I spend my entire day listening to this catalogue of crippling concerns and anxieties.

Because writers come to me for help not when their writing is going well, but when it isn't, they have a lot to teach other writers. Something, or someone, is holding them back, keeping them in place, muting their voices, but it isn't only the authors they have studied in school. When I ask these writers to tell me more about their fears, they recall the words of past teachers who have summed up, as if once and for all, writer and writing: "Messy and all over the place." "Disappointing." "Robotic and emotionless; it's like you don't care." "Unreadable." "This is your worst work," and this chilling suggestion, "Drop out." These memories—shared by freshmen preparing their first college research paper, graduate students completing dissertations, and professors who have been encouraged to transform a well-received conference presentation into a journal article—have taught me that writing inhibitions do not discriminate on the basis of age, experience, or discipline. This is why, in composing the opening to this paper, I sometimes found myself performing the subject of my inquiry.

As I sought to find a place in a conversation that dates back to ancient Greece, I turned to Harold Bloom, who uses Freud, one of the central "theorists of influence, of the giving that famishes the taker" (p. 11), to propose that poetry "comes only from a triumphant wrestling with the greatest of the dead" (p. 9). Bloom and Freud leave a legacy of insights into the creative process and the unconscious dimensions of fiction-writing, but what about the intellectual and psychological challenges that writers of scholarly books and academic papers encounter? Is there useful insight for them in the shadows of this research and theorizing about literature? Yes and no. Because their rigorous training in critical thinking, research, and argument often omits the psychological obstacles and challenges they might encounter, academic and scholarly writers must wrestle with the usual trials of writing as well as challenges exacerbated by the competitive pressures of intellectual public discourse and publishing. Left to fend for themselves, many of these writers are confused when they struggle to begin, sustain, or complete projects, or when professors, conference organizers, and journal editors—the gatekeepers of the public spaces of specialized knowledge—seek evidence that their submissions demonstrate knowledge of previous histories...