Divine Fury (64 page)

45
. Marie Hélène Huet,
Monstrous Imagination
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), esp. 132; John Hope Mason,
The Value of Creativity: The Origins and Emergence of a Modern Belief
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), 1–4; Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
, ed. Susan J. Wolfson (New York: Longman, 2007), 201–202 (these phrases were added to the revised edition of 1831) and 32.

46
. Carl Grosse,
Der Genius
, afterword Günter Dammann (Frankfurt: M. Zweitausendeins, 1982).

47
. Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions
, eds. James Engell and W. Jackson Bates (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 32–33; Coleridge’s
Lay Sermons
, as cited in Simon Bainbridge,
Napoleon and English Romanticism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 32. Bainbridge is good on Coleridge’s complicated and shifting views of Napoleon. Hugo and Chateaubriand are cited in Jean-Baptiste Decherf’s original and insightful “Napoleon and the Poets: The Poetic Origins of the Concept of Charisma,”
Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism
10, no 3 (2010): 362–376. Coleridge is cited in Bainbridge,
Napoleon and English Romanticism
, 24–26.

48
. Christine Battersby,
Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 6–10, 18, 86–92; Andrew Elfenbein,
Romantic Genius: The Prehistory of a Homosexual Role
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 1–7, 27–35; Lucy Delap,
The Feminist Avant-Garde: Transatlantic Encounters of the Early Twentieth Century
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 249–292.

49
. On the association between genius, originality, and eccentricity, see Miranda Gill,
Eccentricity and the Cultural Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Paris
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). The theme of genius and obsession is treated nicely in Lennard J. Davis’s engaging
Obsession: A History
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). On the “aesthetic rewriting of crime” as a privilege of great men, and the birth of a “literature in which crime is glorified, because it is one of the fine arts,” see Foucault,
Discipline and Punish
, 68–69. For Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem” (1893), see
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
, intro. Loren D. Estleman (New York: Bantam Classics, 1986), 471.

50
. The citation from Goethe is often attributed to him, both in English and in German, including by reputable sources, but I have been unable to find its origin and suspect that it may be apocryphal. For the Emerson quotation, see Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Experience,” in
Essays and Lectures
, ed. Joel Port (New York: Library of America, 2009), 488–489.

51
. Hegel,
Lectures on the Philosophy of World History
, 89.

52
. Shelley’s lyric drama
Prometheus Unbound
was first published in 1820. Shelley is cited from “A Defence of Poetry,” 526. Shelley adds, in reference to Milton’s refusal “to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue to his God over his Devil,” that this “bold neglect of a direct moral purpose is the most decisive proof of the superiority of Milton’s genius” (527). For the Byron quotation, see his “Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte,” 1.6. On the fallen Napoleon as a figure of pity and fascination even in his nemesis, Britain, see Stuart Semmel,
Napoleon and the British
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), chap. 8 (“Fallen Greatness”). Byron, like Napoleon, was frequently described as a “satanic hero,” or, as one of his contemporaries, Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, noted in 1837, “a great genius . . . [who] had a good deal of the devil in him.” See Higgins,
Romantic Genius
, 35; Felluga,
Perversity of Poetry
, 81–87.

53
. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
The Autobiography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry from My Own Life
, trans. John Oxenford, 2 vols. (London: George Bell and Sons, 1897–1900), 2:157.

54
. On Hamann’s and Herder’s interpretations of Socrates’s
daimonion
and their influence on Goethe, see Angus Nicholls,
Goethe’s Conception of the Daemonic: After the Ancients
(New York: Boydell and Brewster, 2006), 77–106.

55
. Goethe,
Conversations with Eckermann
, 317–318 (March 2, 1831), 319 (March 8, 1831), and 199–205 (March 11, 1828). See also the discussions of December 6, 1829, and March 2, 1831.

56
. Ibid., 203 (March 11, 1831). On genius as a key concept of German culture, see the insightful discussion of Hans-Georg Gadamer in
Truth and Method
, rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London: Continuum, 1989), esp. 52. Strangely, the importance of the idea of genius in German idealist philosophy has been underappreciated. See, however, Hans Stauffacher, “Von ‘der seltenen Erscheinung’ zum ‘ganz allgemeinen Ausdruck’: Die Systemstelle des Genies im Deutschen Idealismus,”
Philotheos
10 (2010): 195–204.

57
. Thomas Carlyle,
Sartor Resartus
, eds. and intro. Kerry McSweeney and Peter Sabor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 135; David Friedrich Strauss, “Über Vergängliches und Bleibendes im Christentum” (1838), in
Zwei friedliche Blätter
(Altona, Germany: J. F. Hammerich, 1839), 101. Elsewhere, Strauss described this phenomenon as a “new paganism” or “new Catholicism” in Protestant Germany, noting that “one incarnation of God is now not sufficient, and there has arisen a desire for a series of ever more complete avatars such are found in Indian religion. . . . This is a mark of the time, to venerate the spirit of God in all the spirits who have affected humanity in a vital and creative way.” Cited in Marilyn Chapin Massey,
Christ Unmasked: The Meaning of the Life of Jesus in German Politics
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 118. On the Schiller statue, see the account in George Williamson’s fine
The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche
(Chicago: University Chicago Press, 2004), 175.

58
. Goethe,
Conversations with Eckermann
, 200 (March 8, 1831); William Jackson, “The Bard,” in
The Four Ages; Together with Essays on Various Subjects
(London: Cadell and Davis, 1798), 216. See, in addition, Jackson’s essay “Whether Genius Be Born or Acquired” (188–202). For William Duff’s quotation, see his
An Essay on Original Genius and Its Various Modes of Exertion in Philosophy and the Fine Arts, Particularly in Poetry
, ed. John L. Mahoney (Gainesville, FL: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1964), xviii, 186–187.

CHAPTER 5

1
. For an astute analysis of the development of the myth of Van Gogh as a neglected and misunderstood genius, see Nathalie Heinich,
The Glory of Van Gogh: An Anthropology of Admiration
, trans. Paul Leduc Browne (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).

2
. See the discussion of the difficulties of establishing Newton’s likeness in the eighteenth century in Patricia Fara,
Newton: The Making of Genius
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 30–59. The artistic depiction of the genius figure deserves further treatment. For the eighteenth century, see Desmond Shawe-Taylor,
Genial Company: The Theme of Genius in Eighteenth-Century British Portraiture
(Nottingham, UK: Nottingham University Art Gallery, 1987). For the nineteenth century, see Susan P. Casteras, “Excluding Women: The Cult of the Male Genius in Victorian Painting,” in
Rewriting the Victorians: Theory, History, and the Politics of Gender
, ed. Linda M. Shires (New York: Routledge, 1992), 116–146; Brandon Brame Fortune, “Portraits of Virtue and Genius: Pantheons of Worthies and Public Portraiture in the Early American Republic, 1780–1820” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1986).

3
. Johann Caspar Lavater,
Physiognomische Fragmente, zur Berförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe
, 4 vols. (Leipzig und Winterthur, 1775–1778), 4:81–83.

4
. Johann Caspar Lavater,
Essays on Physiognomy, Designed to Promote the Knowledge and the Love of Mankind
, trans. Henry Hunter, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1789), 1:14. When the translations are passable, I have made use of contemporary English editions of Lavater’s writings, reverting to the original when they are not. See Lavater,
Physiognomische Fragmente
, 4:80, 86–89, 91, 84–85. Lavater first offers his own variation on the theme: “Was ist Genie? Wer’s nicht ist, kann nicht; und wer’s ist, wird nicht antworten,” and then proceeds to cite Rousseau, in French, in a note: “‘Ne cherchez point, jeune artiste, ce que c’est le Genie. En as-tu: tu le sens en toi-même. N’en tu pas: tu ne le connoitras jamais’ (Rousseau, Dict. de Musique).”

5
. Lavater,
Essays on Physiognomy
, 3:249–251, 1:218, 2:390. The lines regarding Rubens may be found in
The Whole Works of Lavater on Physiognomy
, trans. George Grenville, 4 vols. (London: W. Butters, [1800]), 4:199.

6
. Lavater,
Essays on Physiognomy
, 2:390. On the similarity of Lavater’s methods with that of later scientists, see Michael Hagner, “Skulls, Brains, and Memorial Culture: On Cerebral Biographies of Scientists in the Nineteenth Century,”
Science in Context
16 (2003): 195–218 (esp. 199).

7
. On Gall’s foundational role, see Michael Hagner,
Geniale Gehirne: Zur Geschichte der Elitegehirnforschung
(Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch, 2007), esp. 53–80.

8
. S. Zola Morgan, “Localization of Brain Function: The Legacy of Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828),”
Annual Review of Neuroscience
18 (1995): 359–383; John Carson,
Measures of Merit: Talents, Intelligence, and Inequality in the French and American Republics, 1750–1940
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 85; Stephen Jay Gould,
The Mismeasure of Man
, rev. and expanded ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), esp. 21–23, 268–269.

9
. Franz Joseph Gall, “Des Herrn Dr. F. J. Gall Schreiben über seinen bereits geendigten Prodromus über die Verrichtungen des Gehirns der Menschen und Thiere an Herrn Jos. Fr. von Retzer” (1798), in
Franz Joseph Gall: Naturforscher und Anthropolog
, ed. Erna Lesky (Bern: Huber, 1979), 47–59 (citation on 55).

10
. Hagner,
Geniale Gehirne
, 61.

11
. Gall and Spurzheim are cited in Hagner, “Skulls, Brains, and Memorial Culture,” 199–201.

12
. Colin Dickey,
Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius
(Cave Creek, AZ: Unbridled Books, 2010); Keith Thompson, “For Sale: Beethoven’s Skull,”
Huffington Post
, January 18, 2010.

13
. The trade in relics was not confined to that of geniuses, but included monarchs, stars, and other celebrities. See Eva Giloi,
Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture, 1750–1950
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Stuart Semmel,
Napoleon and the British
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 226; Stanley M. Bierman, “The Peripatetic Posthumous Peregrination of Napoleon’s Penis,”
Journal of Sex Research
29, no. 4 (1992): 579–580. See, as well, the account in Robert B. Asprey,
The Rise and Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte
, 2 vols. (London: Abacus, 2001), 2:440–443. The alleged penis was, until recently, in the collection of the Columbia University urologist John K. Latimer, who died in 2007. On the fascination with the relics of geniuses in the first decades of the twentieth century, see my article “Relikwieen van genieën [Relics of Genius],” trans. Jan Willem Reitsma,
Nexus
52 (2009): 149–161.