From J. C. Hallman's essay "Books Make Me Masturbate" in Zone #3:
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The first to use the phrase "creative writing" was Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his speech "The American Scholar," delivered at Harvard in 1837. . . .For Emerson, "creative writing" wasn't an allusion to the act of creation, to the grand scheme of two people coupling so as to make something beautiful and alive out of nothing, it was a citation of it. That's what he meant. The "-ive" part of the word means that."-ive" is the suffix of similization. In the end, "creative writing" means "writing that is like fucking." It's from the Greek. Or the Latin.
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Got that, everyone? Thanks for the helpful italics, JC. -- DL
