Genius
- This article is about people with exceptional mental abilities. For the cartoon, see Genius (cartoon).
The term genius is originally a Latin term from Roman culture meaning the guiding or 'tutelary' spirit of a person or indeed of an entire gens, or the genius loci the genius of a place or spirit of the specific locale. In contrast, the internal driving force within all living things is the animus. A specific spirit, or daemon, may inhabit an image or icon, giving it supernatural powers.
A comparable term from Arabic lore is a Djinn often Englished as "Genie".
In modern usage, a 'genius' is a person imbued by his attendant spirit with distinguished mental prowess. This can manifest either as a foremost intellect, or as an outstanding creative talent. The term also applies to one who is a polymath, or someone skilled in many mental areas. The term does specifically apply to mental rather than athletic skills, although it is also used to denote the possession of a superior talent in any field; eg, one may be said to have a genius for golf or for diplomacy.
Gifted
Geniuses come gifted with phenomenal brilliance, and are often as insensitive to the limitations of medicrity as they may be very sensitive emotionally themselves, sometimes both. Artistic geniuses may start out as child prodigies or may be "late bloomers", but differentiate themselves eventually from the rest through great originality and/or inspiration. Intellectual geniuses usually have crisp, clear-eyed visions of given situations, in which interpretation is unnecessary - the facts just hit them, and they build or act on the basis of those facts, usually with tremendous energy. Here too, accomplished geniuses in intellectual fields start out in many cases as prodigies, gifted with superior memory, pattern recognition or just understanding.
Prodigies are simply talented virtuosi, more like circus freaks who do not necessarily feel controlled by any impulse to build or create. Geniuses are creators. They make huge original leaps in their field, rather than just extending the previous body of work in that field. To distinguish between a prodigy, a genius must also have created or brought in something new in an established field, usually, the sciences, math, literature, chess, art, and music.
In philosophy
In the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, a genius is a person in whom intellect predominates over will much more than for the average person. In Schopenhauer's aesthetics, this predominance of intellect over will allows the genius to create artistic or academic works that are objects of pure, disinterested contemplation, the chief criteria of the aesthetic experience for Schopenhauer. Their remoteness from mundane concerns means that Schopenhauer's geniuses often display maladaptive traits in more mundane concerns; in Schopenhauer's words, they fall into the mire while gazing at the stars.
Some commonly termed geniuses
These names are synonymous with the word Genius.
- Leonardo da Vinci (Child art prodigy, artist, inventor, engineer, poet)
- Michaelangelo (Child art prodigy, Sculpter, painter, poet, architect)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Child music prodigy, composer)
- Alexander the Great (Conqueror, statesman, conquered all of the then known world)
- William Shakespeare (playwright)
- Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (composer)
See also:
References
- Harold Bloom, Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds, Warner Books
- James Gleick, Genius : The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, Vintage
- Clifford A. Pickover, Strange Brains and Genius, Quill
