``...We have been so obsessed with the Romantic notion of the lone genius artist, we have forgotten that the spontaneity and fecundity of artistic creation grows out of a supportive social and cultural soil...''
Joanna
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For an interesting example of how that support works in writing, you might take a look at `Gaston Gallimard, A Half Century of French Publishing', Pierre Assouline, HBJ, 1988. Assouline is a little too admiring and reverent toward the Gallimards for my taste, and the writing isn't that great, but it is worth reading for its view on the heights of the 20C haute bourgeois French literary scene and history. In the very early sections (1908-1920) you can see how the inter changeable roles between writer, editor, publisher and reader work to produce some of the 20C French giants like Gide, Valery, Proust, du Gard, Cocteaux, Malraux, then later on Camus, Sartre and Genet---just to name the most familiar names.
Chuck Grimes