CyberVoices | Module One

Definition of Community

Instead of my attempting to define something outside of my discipline (literature), let me direct

you to an informative overview of the concept of community. Please visit the following link and
read the first four pages of this document, ending with “Community - Norms and Habits.”

Community

A few key points from the above online article:

Communities can be formed based on:

- geographical location
- interests, occupations, beliefs
- communion or attachment (the idea of “spirit of community”).

There can be perceptible borders (such as geographical boundaries - a river or road), or

even linguistic “borders,” that is, everyone in an area speaks the same language.
There are, however, more “symbolic” borders, borders perceived by people, perhaps as
an example, people believing in the same religion.

Regardless of the basis on which a given community is formed, there are behaviors
associated with a community. In other words, there is a social network established
among members of the community, as well as a set of social norms and habits associ-
ated within a given community.

What we will be dealing with this semester is how a group of people with like interests - thinking,
writing, creating - forge communities, whether setting geographic boundaries to their community
or establishing a specific time and place to meet on a regular basis - what I refer to as “real
space” writers’ communities. The second major type of community doesn’t meet on a farm, at a
library, or in a cafe; instead, there are no geographic or time boundaries to this type of community
- what I refer to as “cyberspace” (Internet) writers’ communities.

Our first look at writers’ communities deals with some of the “real space” communities, both his-
torical writers’ communities and current writers’ communities.

Historical Writers’ Communities

While writing, for most writers, is a lonely, isolating activity, many writers, throughout history,
have sought out others of like interests and concerns in order to verbalize their fears and desires
and/or to recite their writing in the presence of an audience in order to receive some feedback.

These groups of people with like interests and vocations have, throughout the centuries, either
created loosely developed communities, meeting occasionally in local libraries or coffee shops, or
moving to a place where they live and work together.
CyberVoices | Module One 2

At any
rate, talk we all did, it’s true, till all hours of the night. Not
always, of course, about the meaning of good -- sometimes about
books or painting or anything that occurred to one -- or

What follows is a listing of a few of the many historical literary communities:

Literary Salons of Europe

Salons were organized primarily by wealthy women, who wished to further their literary and
artistic interests, as well as social influence in 17th and 18th France, particularly in Paris.
One of the first salons was established in 1610 b Madame de Rambouilett at an elegantly
decorated house on Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre, where members of court, writers, phi-
losophers, painters congregated.

The Literary Club (Doctor Johnson’s Circle)

Established in London in 1764 by the essayist, poet, lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson,
writers, actors, and painters met and discussed issues of the day, as well as creative en-
deavors. Among the more famous members of this group included: Adam Smith, the
economist, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, and James Boswell, friend and biographer of
Samuel Johnson. The Literary Club is still in existence.

Painting of Dr. Samuel Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Established by the poet and artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1848, this collection of paint-
ers, poets, and writers all wished to portray nature as it is, not in its perfected form, a form
expected by the academic artistic rules of the time.

Definition of Pre-Raphaelites, as well as links to their paintings

The Bloomsbury Group

Probably one of the best known literary communities - certainly of the Victorian Period -
“Bloomberries,” included:

- Virginia Stephen Woolf (writer)

- her husband, Leonard Woolf
- her sister, Vanessa Stephen Bell
- Clive Bell (artist)
CyberVoices | Module One 3
- John Maynard Keyes (economist)
- E. M. Forster (writer).

This group met each Thursday evening in the bohemian section of London, known as
Bloomsbury. The group began some time between 1904 and 1905. A side note: Virginia
Woolf and her husband, Leonard, even established a publishing company - Hogarth Press -
which still publishes today.

List of Bloomsberries, with links to specific information about each member.

The Lost Generation

These ex-patriate Americans - including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude

Stein, Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound - congregated at Parisian cafes, apartments, and
bookstores after World War I.

Lost Generation member Ernest Hemingway visited Sylvia Beach’s book-

shop, Shakespeare and Company.

Beat Poets

After World War II, groups of writers such as - Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady,
Lawrence Ferlinghetti - found solace in each others’ company, both in San Francisco and
New York City, away from an American society and political environment which these writ-
ers found increasingly bland, paranoid, and abhorrent.

Some background material, as well as list of Beat Poets.

Current Writers’ Communities

Now, onto the last portion of this lecture - a look at some “real space” writers’ communities, which
also happen to have websites. The following writers’ communities are places one can visit in or-
der to take advantage of a peaceful, isolated environment and/or a place a writer can be among
others of like interests.

Appel Farm Arts and Music Center | Upper Pittsgrove, New Jersey

Byrdcliffe Arts Colony | Woodstock, New York

Delaware Valley Poets | Lawrenceville, New Jersey

Djerassi Resident Artists Program | San Francisco, California

Hudson Valley Writers’ Center | Sleepy Hollow, New York

Poets’ House | New York, New York

CyberVoices | Module One 4
Wellspring House | Ashfield, Massachsuetts

Wisdom House | Litchfield Connecticut