Gifts are Creative Works

The writer Lewis Hyde says that creative works are gifts. But the reverse is also true.

Norwegian Christmas Card. 1909. Public domain, library of Norway, via Wikimedia Commons.

It’s the time of year when, for those of us who live in countries and communities where Christmas is celebrated, we face the prospect of an explosion of gift exchange. This gift-giving raises all kinds of practical issues (as I asked in my last piece, what do you get a man…