The Fickle Finger of Fame

CREATIVITY

Could tomorrow's James Joyce be today's romance novelist? It's possible, says Dean Keith Simonton, Ph.D. The University of California-Davis psychologist studied the history of opera to see whether creative works that are well received in their own time stand the test of later generations. He found that a show's initial reception predicts its future popularity--but there are exceptions. When Georges Bizet debuted Carmen in 1875, the opera was derided by theatergoers and critics alike. Carmen was revived soon thereafter and now, of course, ranks as one of the most popular operas of all time. The arts, Simonton explains, consist of periods of stability sprinkled with periods of upheaval. In Bizet's time, opera was undergoing a paradigm shift. And there are signs that we are in such an age of chaos. "Right now, there's no baseline on which to judge creative products," Simonton says. "There are works that are a laughing stock now that may become canonical in the next century."