Divine Fury (59 page)

7
. Joseph Addison,
Spectator
160 (September 3, 1711). Goethe, Justus Möser, and Herder all commented ironically in the 1770s on what Möser described as the “mania for genius” gripping his countrymen. See J. Ritter, “Genie,” in
Historisches Wörterbuch der philosophie
, ed. Joachim Ritter, 13 vols. (Basel: Schwabe, 1971–2007), 3:279–309; Joyce E. Chaplin,
The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius
(New York: Basic Books, 2006), 3.

8
. On Shakespeare, see Jonathan Bate,
The Genius of Shakespeare
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), esp. chap. 6, “The Original Genius,” 157–187; William L. Pressly,
The Artist as Original Genius: Shakespeare’s “Fine Frenzy” in Late Eighteenth-Century British Art
(Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2007). See also Kirsti Simonsuuri,
Homer’s Original Genius: Eighteenth-Century Notions of the Early Greek Epic (1688–1798)
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). On the reception of Pindar, see Jochen Schmidt,
Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens in der deutschen Literatur, Philosophie und Politik, 1750–1945
, 2 vols. (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, 2004), 1:179–192. Scott is cited in Christine Battersby,
Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 83. See also
Biographium Fæmineum: The Female Worthies; or, Memoirs of the Most Illustrious Ladies, of All Ages and Nations
, 2 vols. (London: J. Wilkie, 1766), 1:vii. The line from Staël, though almost certainly spurious, is cited in Maria Fairweather,
Madame de Staël
(New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005), 240. I am grateful to Kathleen Kete for drawing it to my attention, and for sharing her (then unpublished) manuscript,
Making Way for Genius: The Aspiring Self in France from the Old Regime to the New
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), which contains a detailed study of Staël’s conception of genius. See also Bonnie G. Smith, “History and Genius: The Narcotic, Erotic, and Baroque Life of Germaine de Staël,”
French Historical Studies
19 (1996): 1059–1081; Johann Georg Hamann,
Briefwechsel
, eds. Walther Ziesemer and Arthur Henkel, 8 vols. (Wiesbaden, Germany: Insel, 1955–1979), 2:415.

9
. On the genius as a new “privileged individual” in the age of Enlightenment and a model of the “highest human type,” see Baldine Saint Girons, “Génie,” in
Dictionnaire européen des lumières
, ed. Michel Delon (Paris: Presses Universitaires de la France, 1997), 496–499; Herbert Dieckmann, “Diderot’s Conception of Genius,”
Journal of the History of Ideas
2, no. 2 (1941): 151–182.

10
. For aesthetic explanations, see, for example, M. H. Abrams,
The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1953); James Engell,
The Creative Imagination: Enlightenment to Romanticism
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981). For the Marxist argument, see Alfred Opitz,
Schriftsteller und Gesellschaft in der Literaturtheorie der französischen Enzyklopädie
(Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1975), esp. 207–211. A critique and subtle consideration of this thesis is provided in Peter Bürger, “Some Reflections upon the Historico-Sociological Explanation of the Aesthetics of Genius in the Eighteenth Century,” in
The Decline of Modernism
, trans. Nicholas Walker (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 57–70. The scholarship on the author and copyright, originally indebted to the work of Michel Foucault, has developed in rich and independent ways. See Mark Rose,
Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983); Martha Woodmansee, “The Genius and the Copyright: Economic and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the ‘Author,’”
Eighteenth-Century Studies
17, no. 4 (1984): 425–448; Zeynep Tenger and Paul Trolander, “Genius Versus Capital: Eighteenth-Century Theories of Genius and Adam Smith’s
Wealth of Nations
,”
Modern Language Quarterly
55, no. 2 (1994): 169–189; Carla Hesse, “The Rise of Intellectual Property, 700 B.C.–A.D. 2000: An Idea in the Balance,”
Daedalus
131, no. 2 (2002): 26–45.

11
. On creation, commerce, and genius, see John Hope Mason,
The Value of Creativity: The Origins and Emergence of a Modern Belief
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), esp. chaps. 4–6;
Journal de commerce et d’agriculture
19 (1762): 78. On the relationship of genius to engineering in the French case, see Janis Langins,
Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 166, 179–180, 213–214. The rise of the inventor is treated nicely in Christine Macleod’s
Heroes of Invention: Technology, Liberalism, and British Identity, 1750–1914
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

12
. My account of God’s withdrawal draws on Marcel Gauchet,
The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion
, trans. Oscar Burge (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 53–57. See also Charles Taylor,
A Secular Age
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007), esp. chap. 6. Leading historians who have adapted Gauchet’s insights include Keith Michael Baker, “Enlightenment and the Institution of Society: Notes for a Conceptual History,” in
Civil Society: History and Possibilities
, eds. Sudipta Kavirag and Sunil Khilnani (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 84–105, and David A. Bell,
The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).

13
. Gauchet,
Disenchantment of the World
, 10–11, 176–180; Reinhart Koselleck,
Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time
, trans. Keith Tribe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).

14
. See Christopher Hill’s classic
The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution
(London: Maurice Temple Smith, 1972).

15
. On the assertion of natural equality and the reactions to it, see the concise account in Lynn Hunt,
Inventing Human Rights: A History
(New York: Norton, 2007). On the way in which elite artists in the nineteenth century engaged in complex ways with both aristocratic values and a democratic culture emphasizing equality, see Nathalie Heinich,
L’élite artiste: Excellence et singularité en régime démocratique
(Paris: Editions Gallimard, 2005); Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author,”
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
, foreword Douglas Den Uyl, 3 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001), 1:129. I have modernized the capitalization and spelling here and below.

16
. Shaftesbury, “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author,” in
Characteristicks
, 1:106–108.

17
. Ibid.

18
. Johann Caspar Lavater,
Physiognomische Fragmente, zur Berförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe
, 4 vols. (Leipzig und Winterthur, 1775–1778), 4:80–83; Johann Gottfried Herder,
Über Genie, Geschmack und Kritik
(Mainz, Germany: Marxen, 1937), esp. chap. 1, “Genie.”

19
. William Belsham, “Observations on Genius,” in
Essays, Philosophical, Historical and Literary
, 2 vols. (London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1799), 2:457; Edward Young,
Conjectures on Original Composition
, ed. Edith J. Morley (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1918), 13.

20
. Young,
Conjectures
, 13, 15. The line by Cicero is from his
De natura deorum
, 2.66.167. I have been unable to locate the provenance of “Sacer nobis inest Deus” (Holy is the God within us) in Seneca’s writings, though he does comment similarly in the
Epistulae morales
, 41.2, “Sacer intra nos spiritus sedet” (Holy is the spirit that dwells within). On the influence of ancient conceptions, see Penelope Murray, “Poetic Genius and Its Classical Origins,” in
Genius: The History of an Idea
, ed. Penelope Murray (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 29; Peter Kivy,
The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of Musical Genius
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).

21
. Joshua Landy and Michael Saler, “Introduction” to
The Re-Enchantment of the World
, eds. Landy and Saler (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 2. See also Saler’s “Modernity and Enchantment: A Historiographic Review,”
American Historical Review
111, no. 3 (2006): 692–717.

22
. Dieckmann, “Diderot’s Conception of Genius,” 157. On the “Je ne sais quoi,” see Annie Becq,
Genèse de l’esthétique française moderne: De la raison classique à l’imagination créatrice, 1680–1814
(Pisa: Pacini, 1984), 1:701ff; Richard Scholar,
The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe: Encounters with a Certain Something
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Thomas Hobbes,
The Answer of Mr. Hobbes to Sir William Davenant’s Preface Before Gondibert
, in the
English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury
, ed. Sir William Molesworth, 11 vols. (London: Bohn, 1839–1845), 4:448. On enthusiasm, see Michael Heyd,
“Be Sober and Reasonable”: The Critique of Enthusiasm in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries
(Leiden: Brill, 1995); J. G. A. Pocock, “Enthusiasm: The Antiself of Enlightenment,” in Lawrence E. Klein and Anthony J. La Vopa,
Enthusiasm and Enlightenment in Europe, 1650–1850
(Pasadena, CA: Huntington Library Press, 1998), esp. 9–14.

23
. John Locke,
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
, 4.19 (“Of Enthusiasm”); Jan Goldstein, “Enthusiasm or Imagination? Eighteenth-Century Smear Words in Comparative National Context,”
Huntington Library Quarterly
60 (1998): 29–49.

24
. On the French debate, see Kineret S. Jaffe, “The Concept of Genius: Its Changing Role in Eighteenth-Century French Aesthetics,”
Journal of the History of Ideas
41, no. 4 (1980): 579–599. On the German staging of this debate, which borrowed heavily from France, see Pierre Grappin,
La théorie du génie dans le pré-classicisme allemande
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952), 117–121; Locke,
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
, Section 1; William Sharpe,
A Dissertation upon Genius: Or, an Attempt to Shew, That the Several Instances of Distinction, and Degrees of Superiority in the Human Genius Are Not, Fundamentally, the Result of Nature, but the Effect of Acquisition
(London: C. Bathurst, 1755), 6. For Helvétius, I have used a facsimile edition of the contemporary English translation,
De l’esprit, or Essays on the Mind and Its Several Faculties
(London: J. M. Richardson, 1809), published in the Elibron Classics Series by the Adamant Media Corporation (2005), 204 (Essay 3, chap. 3, “Of Memory”), and 365–366 (Essay 4, chap. 1, “Of Genius”).

25
. For an introduction to the extensive literature on deliberate practice, see K. Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich, and Robert R. Hoffman, eds.,
The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). The views of Ericsson have been developed and presented to a wide audience in Malcolm Gladwell’s
Outliers: The Story of Success
(New York: Little, Brown, 2008). See also Hobbes,
Leviathan
, chap. 13 (“Of the Natural Condition of Mankind”), and chap. 8 (“Of the Virtues Commonly Called Intellectual”); Sharpe,
Dissertation upon Genius
, 48.