Laura C. Ball
Geniuses throughout history have fascinated academic and pop-culture authors alike. We consume autobiographies, biographies, films, histories, and academic theories of the outliers, the heroes, the Great Men, the geniuses. They are historical celebrities. We are captivated by them, their lives, and their work, but also their stories provide readers with a source of affiliation and inspiration. Yet, despite the attention given to their seemingly inevitable greatness, these celebratory histories tell us little about why they are considered to be great.
In this chapter, I explore the kinds of geniuses who have captured our attention over time, the ways in which they have been depicted, and the methods used to tell their stories. First, I outline who have been labeled as geniuses, and how these “great men” have been identified. As most historiography of genius flows from Thomas Carlyle's (1841) classic text On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, his distinction between “heroes” and “geniuses” will be discussed specifically. Particular attention will also be paid to how psychologists entered the dialogue and their contributions to the narrative. Next, I review the different historiographic and psychological methods employed to study the life stories and achievements of identified geniuses. Finally, I question what qualities, characteristics, and events are privileged by authors using each of these historical methods, and therefore how they reveal the genius in history.
The Relationship between History and Genius
Thomas Carlyle's (1841) On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History is a classic text on historiography, which is now seen by historians as representative of an outdated form of historical argumentation and analysis. Carlylian – or Great Man – history is gendered, celebratory, whiggish, and presentist. Carlyle expressly believed that history is – and should be – an exercise in hero-worship. The first lecture in the text, “The Hero as Divinity,” encapsulates his perspective on historical subjects. To begin the lecture, Carlyle says:
To current historians and scholars interested in genius, Carlyle's perspective seems foreign. He describes the genius and the hero as “divine” and “God-inspired.” Yet, while this perspective is certainly out of step with current historical and psychological sensibilities, it did not arise in a vacuum. To further explore how the “Great Man” came to enter the world of historiography (historical methods), we must first examine the etymology of the word “genius.”
From a historical perspective, the term “genius” is problematic: it has had a long history of use, and has acquired multiple meanings over time, each describing vastly different phenomena. It is not uncommon to see genius referring to eminence (e.g., Galton, 1865, 1869/1892), giftedness (e.g., Terman, 1916, 1925), or the character or zeitgeist of a time period or geographical region (e.g., Alaya, 1977).
The first known instance of the term genius being used is during the Roman Empire, where it referred to a male spiritual protector or guardian spirit (Murray, 1989; Simonton, 2009a). Typically, the protection offered by a genius was applied to individuals, families, and physical spaces. Every person, family, city, body of water, or other important physical structure had its own genius. In addition, a genius could also refer to the character of a society, and the “spirit of the times” or zeitgeist.
Over time, genius began to be more intimately connected with individuals, and ultimately came to bear directly upon their personalities. However, it was not until the Enlightenment when the connotations of the word took on its present implications: genius referring to the superior or unique abilities of an individual person (Albert, 1969; Murray 1989; Simonton, 2009a). During the Enlightenment
However, despite this shift, the older connotations had not yet faded away. Samuel Johnson's (1755) A Dictionary of the English Language reflects this transition, where he provides the following definitions of genius: (1) the protecting or ruling power of men, places, or things; (2) a man endowed with superior faculties; (3) mental power or faculties; (4) disposition of nature by which any one is qualified for some peculiar employment; and (5) nature, disposition. Clearly, only the first definition is consistent with the original Roman meaning. This is probably because another similar word had also been transported from Latin into the English language – ingenium.
Ingenium referred to both a natural disposition and an innate ability. It is a quality that cannot be developed through time and education, and only a rare few are lucky enough to be born with this kind of talent (Murray, 1989). When translated into English,1 ingenium became genius as well, therefore adding to the complexity of the original definition. As a result, the original spiritually linked term survived and became entangled with the notion of natural ability (Derrida, 2003/2006; Murray, 1989). This way of thinking about genius remained popular throughout the 19th century.
Looking at Carlyle's work through this lens, his vision of history as hero-worship was completely commensurate with academic thinking at the time: talent was linked to divine inspiration. Even though the hero differed from the genius – the former seen in myth, religion, politics, and the military, and the latter in the arts and sciences – both were to be celebrated for their divine gifts. In this way, Carlyle was able to advance a unique perspective on history that was driven by the divinely inspired genius and the mythical hero, forming a historiographic approach that is expressly a celebration of these “Great Men.”
History and the Psychology of Genius
Two decades after Carlyle's famous lectures on heroes and hero-worship, Darwin's (1859) On the Origin of Species was published. Not only did this classic text come to revolutionize the study of biology, but also it transformed the then-burgeoning discipline of psychology. Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, was a devout follower2 of this new theory of evolution, and sought to apply it to his own interests.
Galton was interested in what drives greatness, and he posited that “natural ability” – a trait that would be similar to intelligence – was at its root. However, as a working test for intelligence had yet to be developed, he turned to the next best thing: historical records. Through kinship studies of eminent individuals, Galton believed that the hereditary nature of natural ability could be inferred (Galton, 1865, 1869/1892). In Hereditary Genius (1869/1892), Galton presented a kinship study of eminent judges, military commanders, scientists, poets, and oarsmen, among others, which did indeed show a correlation among family members: Where one individual in a family was considered to be an eminent contributor to society, successive generations of men often followed in a similar trajectory. He therefore concluded that ability is hereditary. Galton further expressed the belief that certain psychological factors, such as persistence, were essential to the expression of one's natural ability; however, social and other environmental factors had little bearing. He said, “If a man is gifted with vast intellectual ability, eagerness to work, and power of working, I cannot comprehend how such a man should be repressed” (1869/1892, p. 39). In essence, geniuses are born, not made; nature, not nurture.
Galton's approach has been very influential in the psychology of genius literature. Besides defining one of the primary narratives – “genius” as a hereditary quality that can be identified, measured, and predicted, he also began to move the understanding of genius as something “Other” and divine towards an understanding of genius as the product of positive evolutionary forces (particularly sexual selection). However, Galton's work was also important because he was the first to u...
