Genius

[poliphilo]

If Yves St Laurent was a genius- which is what they're calling him in the obituaries- what word do we use to describe Leonardo da Vinci?

Mind you, no-one called Leonardo a genius in his lifetime. Our modern use of the word seems to date from the 19th century- and from the work of Sir Francis Galton- another genius.

I suppose our use of the word has always been a bit loose. There are "universal" geniuses like Goethe- who excelled in all sorts of different disciplines and (according to a website I've just consulted) may have had the highest IQ of all time- and specialised geniuses like Einstein- who was great in a single field. 

Exactly how brilliant do you have to be? I have no difficulty describing Mozart as a genius, but step down a few rungs and what about Tchaikovsky? What about Paul McCartney? 

I reckon there ought to be a cut-off point. Below a certain level you're not a genius, just very talented. 

Also there has to be achievement. Being extremely intelligent but doing nothing about it isn't good enough. And the achievement has to be important. Now that's another slippery word- but I reckon a significant breakthrough in philosophy, science or the arts puts you in the running, but being very good at chess doesn't. 

I would hesitate to describe any sportsman or woman as a genius. Same goes (coming full circle) for people who design frocks. 

Genius and saint are the highest titles we can give a human being. I think we should be as careful with the one as the Vatican is (or used to be before JPII got going) with the other. There are gifted people- and then there are people whose gift is so extraordinary as to seem almost supernatural: these are the geniuses- and there are very, very few of them.

Comments

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Oooh, this is an excellent article about genius (not IQ). Marjorie Garber is a glorious scholar.

Through the Renaissance and well into the eighteenth century the most familiar meaning of "genius" in English was something like "temperament" or "disposition": people were described as having a "daring genius" or an "indolent genius."

Joseph Addison's essay "On Genius," published in The Spectator in 1711, laid out the terrain of genius as we use the term today, to denote exceptional talent or someone who possesses it. According to Addison, there were two kinds of genius—natural and learned (the greatest of geniuses were the natural ones, whose inborn gifts freed them from dependence on models or imitation). Homer, Pindar, and Shakespeare were his examples of the first category, Aristotle, Virgil, Milton, and Francis Bacon of the second. In general terms this dichotomy—brilliant versus industrious—still underlies our notions of genius today, but despite Thomas Edison's oft quoted adage "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration," it's the inspiration that we dote on.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is good article. Thanks for the link.

And who'd have thought that the term originated with Addison?