Creative Collaboration, a summary

This chapter of John-Steiner's book Creative Collaboration  deals with the elementary school level problem of 'just getting along' when it comes to complex personal/professional/creative relationships. She takes both a feminist and a cultural-historical approach to  analyzing several artistic and scientific collaborations. The rest of the chapter is split up into sections:

Complementarity in Temperament, where she talks about  Marie and Pierre Curie among others, and how two people with different but complementary personalities can combine to support one another and make up for any personal shortcomings

The Gift of Confidence, where she states that collaboration between two people also gives the individual a person that believes in them- through this, the self-doubt that so often destroys a creator can be pushed through. Given examples: Frida Kaloh and Diego Rivera, Jean-Paul Sartre et Simone de Beauvoir.

Emotional Complementarity and Trust. How prolonged exposure and work with a person can redevelop your personality- not change it, just open parts that had been unused and make them stretch out a bit. Ariel and Will Durant, the story of civilization

Collaborative Intimacy: its promise and dangers.  Of course, the entire section is devoted to Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. She labels points of tension in Plath's using Hughes to fill 'sad holes' left  in her psyche by the death of her father, and in Hughes' unwillingness to confront his wife's metal health in any way but as creative potential. She uses their tragedy as a model to portray the negatives of collaboration when communication is hindered; dangerous, toxic, lethal.

Issues of Intellectual Ownership and Inequality. She gives the example of the authors of the book Women's way of Knowing. The authors arranged their names in alphabetical order on the book so as to not have to deal with the hierarchy apparent in academia; they were subject to it anyways, always being referred to as 'Belenky, et al' 

Here are some quotes of interest: 

"The co-construction of ideas is helped by a listening ear. Innovative works of literature, drama, choreography, and art are nourished by emotional support. Building a resilient sense of identity is aided by a self that is stretched and strengthened in a partnership." 

"Another possibility is that intimacy offers a solid foundation for an individual who is trying to cope with her or her complexity. In effective, long-term relationships, partners learn to adjust to each other's intensity and may be able to give each other 'space' when the need for solitude arises. Intense collaborations are frequently trans formative and can provide enormous intellectual and emotional benefits to the participants. But when they become emotionally excessive and splinter, the wounds inflicted by a traumatic ending may be long-lasting."