Good writers are born not made true or false?
Writers are born in order to write. Arthur Rimbaud was a French
poet who was regarded by many critics in his times as the best
writer. Victor Hugo regarded him as little Shakespeare. He started
writing or rather he became a writer at a very tender age - and by
the age of 17 he was at top of his career was well known all over
France. By the age of 21 years he completely retired from writing
all together. He did not retire because writing made him rich and
wealthy. In fact he did not generate any real significa income from
his writing, yet he was great. Rimbaud's poetry, as well as his
life, made an indelible impression on 20th century writers,
musicians and artists. Pablo Picasso, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg,
Vladimir Nabokov, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Léo Ferré and Jim
Morrison have been influenced by his poetry and life
Arthur Rimbaud is a good personification of the idea that it
appears a writer is a born writer more than trained writer. I say
it appears, because still there are other people who became
writers, good writers through hard years of trial and error, or
they learned to become good writers because circumstances channeled
them to be writers, like finding themselves in a job that required
a lot of writing. In that way they came to the profession of
writing accidentally.
But consider the writers like Arthur Rimbaud; consider also
William Shakespeare, Consider Victor Hugo and Emily Dickinson. By
all probabilities you will agree that true writing you come into
this world with it; you come into this world as a writer. Writers
are born not trained. Consider what Arthur Rimbaud once said
referring to a poet. I will say the quotation below by Arthur
Rimbaud is not only about poets but writers in general, viz article
writer, fiction writer and so on. Here is what Arthur Rimbaud said
at the age of 17 years old describing and defining a poet:
"The first study for the man who wants to be a poet is knowledge
of himself, complete: he searches for his soul, he inspects it, he
puts it to the test, he learns it. As soon as he has learned it, he
must cultivate it! I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a
seer. The poet becomes a seer through a long, immense, and reasoned
derangement of all the senses. All shapes of love suffering,
madness. He searches himself, he exhausts all poisons in himself,
to keep only the quintessences. Ineffable torture where he needs
all his faith, all his superhuman strength, where he becomes among
all men the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed
one--and the supreme Scholar! For he reaches the unknown! ....So
the poet is actually a thief of Fire!"