Silences Mean What? Lessons from Sibelius and Stevens?

For the last 30 years of his life, Jean Sibelius produced no major work of music. In fact, he produced next to nothing at all. Rumors of an eighth symphony swirled around, but no surviving version (if one ever existed) survives. Wallace Stevens during the infancy of his daughter and for several years thereafter fell into silence, though how much is uncertain.

These two creative silences intrigue me because they seem so foreign to me. Whether that is good or bad is not for me to decide. While I...