INTRODUCTION: PRE‐ROMANTIC AND POST‐ROMANTIC GENIUS
2022; Wiley; Volume: 75; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/glal.12344
ISSN1468-0483
Autores Tópico(s)Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity
Resumo'Genius' is an eye-catching, resonant expression to include in any title, be it of a book, film or exhibition, whether factual or fiction, popular or scholarly. Its fascination persists in academia despite repeated announcements of its demise as a term in serious critical debate. Generations of influential thinkers have sought to discredit and deconstruct it, presenting it as an ahistorical means of obscuring the workings of culture or else as a reactionary fetish that lends itself all too readily to political appropriation.11 See, for example, Walter Benjamin, 'Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit' (1936, in particular the foreword to the third edition), Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, Frankfurt a. M. 1963, pp. 7–44 (p. 10); Roland Barthes seeks to reveal genius as a bourgeois fetish in Mythologies, Paris 1957; and in 'La mort de l'auteur' (1968), in Roland Barthes, Le Bruissement de la langue: Essais critiques IV, Paris 1984, pp. 63–9, as does Michael Foucault in 'Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur?', Bulletin de la Société française de philosophie, 63/3 (Jul-Sept 1969), 73–104. Nevertheless, it survives effortlessly, due in large part to its versatility or rather de facto opacity; genius defies definition, while maintaining a wide spectrum of highly evocative associations. Although it fell out of general use or else was considered unviable in aesthetics and literary criticism post-1945, it periodically returns as a term of justification and approbation, if not of analysis or explanation;22 Harold Bloom is notable for his efforts to save genius, not only as a literary historical term but also as a critical term for the new millennium, referring back to Ovid to explain its effects: 'The ancient answer is that there is a god within us, and the god speaks.' Harold Bloom, Genius. A Mosaic of one Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds, New York 2002, p. 12. in other disciplines, most notably psychology, it is currently thriving (again).33 See Dean Keith Simonton (ed.), Wiley Handbook of Genius, Hoboken, NJ 2014, which features almost exclusively psychologists and psychiatrists among its contributors. The role genius played in the emergence of psychology as a discipline has often been explored; see, for example, John Carson, 'Equality, Inequality, and Difference: Genius as Problem and Possibility in American Political/Scientific Discourse', in Joyce E. Chaplin and Darrin M. McMahon (eds), Genealogies of Genius, New York and Basingstoke 2016, pp. 43–62. There has also been a recent resurgence of interest in its history as a discursive phenomenon, interest which, understandably, has tended to examine its emergence as a modern concept in the eighteenth century, or else its refinement and universalisation during Romanticism.44 Recent historical studies include Julia Barbara Köhne, Geniekult in Geisteswissenschaften und Literaturen um 1900 und seine filmischen Adaptionen, Vienna, Cologne and Weimar 2014; Chaplin and McMahon (eds), Genealogies of Genius (note 3), and Mike Porath, Mütter – Die Geniefigur in der deutschsprachigen Literature 1750–1950, Stuttgart 2021. This special number focuses instead on the period which gave genius a bad name with critical theorists in the first place: the nineteenth century.55 See, in particular, Edgar Zilsel's attack on nineteenth-century genius cults in Die Genie-Religion. Ein kritischer Versuch über das modern Persönlichkeitsideal, mit einer historischen Begründung, Berlin and Leipzig 1918. We begin at the point most studies see its discursive power waning, around 1830,66 The standard work on genius in German, Jochen Schmidt's Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens in der deutschen Literatur, Philosophie und Politik 1750–1945, 2 vols, Darmstadt 1985, needs only half as many pages to cover the period from the 1820s to 1945 as it does for the 'eigentliche Genieperiode' in the eighteenth century. Schmidt writes of the 'Ablösung des Genie-Gendakens' in the post-Romantic period, see II, pp. 40–61. and carry our investigation through to the early twentieth century. And while acknowledging that intense international dialogue and exchange played a vital role in the crystallisation of genius as a modern concept, we also seek to implement the insight of Joyce E. Chaplin and Darrin M. McMahon who note that 'genius has performed specific cultural work within each of the societies in which it has had a historical presence'.77 Joyce E. Chaplin and Darrin M. McMahon, 'Introduction', in Chaplin and McMahon (eds), Genealogies of Genius (note 3), pp. 1–10 (p. 2). The appeal and survival of genius may be due to its seemingly universal applicability, potentially in all spheres of activity, transcending cultural boundaries.88 Rather than artists or poets, the English texts which formed the basis for much early theorising on genius in German often took natural scientists of the previous century as their model of genius; see Bernhard Fabian, 'Der Naturwissenschaftler als Originalgenie', in Bernfried Nugel (ed.), Englische Literaturtheorie von Sydney bis Johnson, Darmstadt 1984, pp. 298–325. In Hereditary Genius, London 1869, Francis Galton takes into consideration judges, politicians, musicians, writers, painters, wrestlers and rowers; see, for example, Janet Browne, 'Inspiration to Perspiration: Francis Galton's Hereditary Genius in Victorian Context', in Chaplin and McMahon (eds), Genealogies of Genius (note 3), pp. 77–95. Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum's series of genius miniatures, Genie, Irrsinn und Ruhm, Munich 1928, covers religious leaders, statesmen, painters, poets, scientists and explorers. As literary and cultural historians, however, it is incumbent on us to relativise its fascination; our special number is therefore made up of localised studies, considering theories, uses and 'manifestations' of genius within their particular discursive contexts.99 In this respect, our approach was inspired by Ann Jefferson, Genius in France. An Idea and its Uses, Princeton and Oxford 2014, which points out the pitfalls of treating genius discourse as though it were nothing other than 'a single, pan-European conversation […] ignoring the nature of the disciplinary and discursive context in which […] contributions were made' (p. 5). The German term 'Genie' has a very particular history within the general history of genius. Over the course of the 1700s, genius – 'génie', 'genio', 'Genie' – was established throughout Europe, primarily as a designation for exceptional creative power, but increasingly also for individuals considered to possess such power. Stemming from the Latin genius and ingenium, the term itself was not, of course, new: its extraordinary proliferation and evolution during the classicist eighteenth century were due in no small part to this distinguished ancestry.1010 Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler, Genius. Zur Wirkungsgeschichte antiker Mythologeme in der Goethezeit, Munich 1978, pp. 23–30. Originally denoting a specifically male procreative force, in antiquity genius came to mean an individual tutelary spirit, but could also refer to the defining characteristics of someone or something. Ingenium could likewise refer to a person's character, or else to an inborn trait or aptitude which could take on the guise of a divine gift, akin to inspiration.1111 Jürgen Klein, 'Genius, Ingenium, Imagination: Aesthetic Theories of Production from the Renaissance to Romanticism', in Frederick Burwick and Jürgen Klein (eds), The Romantic Imagination: Literature and Art in England and Germany, Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA 1996, pp. 19–62 (19–23), and Katrin Kohl, Poetologische Metaphern: Formen und Funktionen in der deutschen Literatur, Berlin 2007, pp. 262–3. Modern genius maintained the potential to reactivate aspects of all of these older meanings.1212 See Hubert Sommer, Génie: zur Bedeutungsgeschichte des Wortes von der Renaissance zur Aufklärung, Frankfurt a. M. and Vienna 1998; also Schmidt-Dengler, Genius (note 10), pp. 39–54 and 58. It aggregated historical topoi from poetological traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance: Platonic mania, the link between creativity and melancholy, the writer as poeta vates and alter deus.1313 See Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz, Die Legende vom Künstler. Ein geschichtlicher Versuch, Frankfurt a. M. 2018. New, however, was the association of modern genius with originality and innovation, also the urgency with which it was debated, in a dynamic that only intensified as the eighteenth century wore on.1414 Raymond Williams, Keywords. A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Oxford 2015 (new rev. edn), pp. 99–100; Rob Pope, Creativity. Theory, History, Practice, Oxford and New York 2005, p. 102; Andreas Reckwitz, Die Erfindung der Kreativität. Zum Prozess gesellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung, Berlin 2012, pp. 54–5; Darrin McMahon, Divine Fury. A History of Genius, New York 2013, pp. 2–6. Not only within literature and philosophy but also in the broader context of Enlightenment ideals of the sovereign subject, genius became a central, if controversial notion.1515 Jefferson, Genius in France (note 9), pp. 19–33. The urgency of these discussions was particularly marked in German-language culture. Having arrived comparatively late to German via French, 'Genie' and its derivatives were swiftly integrated into the language from the 1760s onwards,1616 Jan Niklas Howe, 'Die Anfänge des schöpferischen Menschen', in Kim Kannler et al. (eds), Kritische Kreativität: Perspektiven auf Arbeit, Bildung, Lifestyle und Kunst, Bielefeld 2019, p. 22. their prominence leading to the decades from 1770 to 1790 later being referred to as the 'Geniezeit' or 'Genieperiode'.1717 These designations grew out of expressions already used in the late eighteenth century with varying degrees of approval or irony; Friedrich Schlegel, for example, referred to the 1770s as the 'Periode der Kraftgenies' when registering his relief that the phenomenon was now a thing of the past, see Athenäums-Fragment Nr. 306 (1798), in Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Schriften und Fragmente, ed. Ernst Behler, 6 vols, Paderborn and Munich 1988, II, p. 134. By the 1840s, 'Genieperiode' and 'Geniezeit' had been established as literary historical terms; see, for example, Georg Gottfried Gervinus, Geschichte der poetischen National-Literatur der Deutschen, 5 vols, Leipzig 1835–42, V (1842), pp. 37, 52, 595, 655 and 642. Genius became a key term in the emerging philosophical discipline of aesthetics, in which German-language culture was poised to take a leading role.1818 Schmidt, Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens (note 6), I, pp. 8–10. It also played a vital role in the re-invention of art as an autonomous sphere,1919 See, for example, chapter two in Reckwitz, Die Erfindung der Kreativität (note 14): 'Künstlerische "Schöpfung" zwischen Geniesubjekt und Publikum: Die Formierung des modernen Kunstfeldes', pp. 54–89. thereby fuelling parallel developments in copyright and celebrity culture.2020 Hans Brög, Zum Geniebegriff. Quellen, Marginalien, Probleme, Düsseldorf 1973, pp. 42–3; see also Gregory Maertz, Literature and the Cult of Personality. Essays on Goethe and His Influence, New York 2017; Michael Wetzel, Der Autor-Künstler. Ein europäischer Gründungsmythos vom schöpferischen Individuum, Bonn 2020, in particular pp. 155–7. At the same time, 'Genie' or 'genial' could be applied not only to artists and their works but also to exceptional figures in other walks of life, as well as to certain character types, historical periods, places and languages.2121 Schmidt-Dengler, Genius (note 10), p. 183; Schmidt, Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens (note 6), I, pp. 120–30. Its emergence in the volatile decades preceding the French Revolution has caused it to be linked in secondary literature to the self-emancipatory processes of the newly-forming middle classes;2222 Ibid., p. 4. 'Genie' certainly became something of an obsession for those writing within the up-and-coming professions of critic or reviewer as well as for philosophers and poets. It spread rapidly from academic and literary discourse to popular culture,2323 Franz-Joseph Meissner, Wortgeschichtliche Untersuchungen im Umkreis von französisch 'Enthousiasme' und 'Génie', Geneva 1979, pp. 271–5. resulting in a complex, multiform ubiquity that precludes its retrospective definition except in specific case studies. From the beginning, its discursive history is characterised by paradoxes.2424 Schmidt-Dengler, Genius (note 10), pp. 133, 146–9 and 200–2; Schmidt, Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens (note 6), I, p. 199. Genius contributed to the growing secularisation of German society during the 'Sattelzeit', for example, while at the same time conserving and rejuvenating sacralising tropes from earlier traditions;2525 Reckwitz, Die Erfindung der Kreativität (note 14), pp. 55–6; Joachim Jacob, 'Inspiration und Säkularisierung in der Poetik der Aufklärung', in Lutz Danneberg et al. (eds), Säkularisierung in den Wissenschaften seit der Frühen Neuzeit, 3 vols, Berlin 2002/3, II (2002), pp. 303–30; and Zilsel, Die Genie-Religion (note 5), one of the earliest attempts to investigate the mass psychology of genius cults. it also served as a trope of individualist self-assertion while simultaneously informing the emergence of German cultural nationalism as a collective phenomenon.2626 For the ways in which genius simultaneously fed into and was nourished by the rise of cultural nationalism across the German-speaking territories in the late eighteenth century, see Günter Peters, Der zerrissene Engel: Genieästhetik und literarische Selbstdarstellung im 18. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1982, in particular pp. 91–106; also Schmidt-Dengler, Genius (note 10), pp. 48–9 and 94. This last development was further complicated by the enduring suspicion which the mixed origins of 'Genie' inspired in some quarters. The irony of a French loan word with Latin roots helping to galvanise a culture that wished more than ever to be authentically German was not lost on commentators of the time.2727 Schmidt, Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens (note 6), I, pp. 18–19. Alongside its rapid rise as a term of approbation and celebration, a parallel tradition emerged of condemning and lampooning its use, or rather overuse.2828 Ibid., pp. 147–8; Matthias Luserke-Jaqui, Handbuch Sturm und Drang, Berlin 2017, pp. 9–11. As 'Genie' was co-opted to question or upset rules and conventions, it was inevitable that its popularity would attract criticism from those keen to maintain the status quo: no sooner had it made an appearance in German than it was depicted as a preposterous fad, rendered an easy target by its Frenchified etymology. It was also, however, attacked or boycotted by figures who were by no means adverse to innovation per se, but insisted it be brought about by autochthonous means.2929 According to Schmidt-Dengler, German-speaking Aufklärer used 'Genius' rather than 'Genie', as they wished to avoid the 'Beigeschmack des mitunter odiosen französischen "bel esprit"', see Genius (note 10), p. 58; he also comments on how Klopstock avoids 'Genie', pp. 61–71 and 93–4, and Maximilian Klinger's negative association of 'Genie' with the worst consequences of the French Revolution, see ibid., pp. 170–5. 'Genie' had no problems outliving such strenuous and explicit disapproval: its discursive history in German is a success story not only in terms of speedy integration but also of sheer volume of usage. Nonetheless, it has never been entirely naturalised, remaining marked as a loan word through its pronunciation.3030 Rudolf Hildebrand notes that its pronunciation marks it as French, whereas the neuter gender stems from the Latin 'ingenium'; see his entry 'Genie', in Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, 33 vols, Leipzig 1854–1971, V (1897), columns 3396–450. Its status is thus that of an 'émigré', to use Richard Scholar's term for French tags that, while remaining ineluctably French, have become part of other languages. Such émigrés, according to Scholar, point to 'constitutive problems' of the host language, 'even as they create new possibilities of expression'; they are full of the 'deviant power' of the untranslated word. Their adoption and the way they are treated in the new language point to cultural fault-lines.3131 Richard Scholar, Émigrés. French words that turned English, Princeton and Oxford 2020, p. 11. For examples of the 'constitutive problems' that 'Genie' expressed or addressed, see Schmidt, Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens (note 6), I, p. 128. 'Genie' may have arrived in German as a problematic migrant, but it was certainly never marginalised. Its prominence in a variety of discourses and registers from the very beginning confirms that it brought with it conceptual as well as emotional and rhetorical energies, despite continued attempts to argue that it was an expendable import.3232 Although Hildebrand's entry on 'Genie' in the Deutsches Wörterbuch (see note 30) was published over a hundred years after the term was adopted in German and despite the fact that he requires thirteen subsections to define it, he nevertheless asserts that it is a redundant loan word and has added nothing to the language. For further analysis of the paradoxes of this dictionary entry, see Arno Dusini's contribution to the present volume. In this respect, it exemplifies yet another defining paradox of German-language culture in the late 1700s and beyond: the co-existence of a deep-seated anxiety of foreign influence alongside self-professed reliance on and active endeavours to seek or consolidate such influence. 'Genie' has unique status as it was borrowed to express precisely the phenomena in which this anxiety was rooted: authenticity, autonomy and the nature and forms of original creativity. The broad range of genius's discursive functions and associations contributed to its growing ambivalence as the eighteenth century drew to a close. It reached new heights and depths in Romanticism. A. W. Schlegel, for example, writing in 1801, exalted it as superhuman and hailed its products as 'wahre Offenbarungen'3333 A. W. Schlegel, Vorlesungen über schöne Litteratur und Kunst. Erster Teil (1801–1802): Die Kunstlehre, Heilbronn 1884, p. 84 (https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/schlegel1884bd1/0160). while insisting that it suffused – or should suffuse – the very stuff of daily life, every thought and action.3434 See Andreas Michel and Assenka Oskiloff, 'Romantic Crossovers. Philosophy as Art and Art as Philosophy', in Jochen Schulte-Sasse (ed.), Theory as Practice: A Critical Anthology of Early German Romantic Writings, London 1997, pp. 157–79. On Fichte and 'Das absolute Ich als transzendentalphilosophische Universalisierung des Genie-Gedankens in der "Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre"', see Schmidt, Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens (note 6), I, pp. 381–4. Schlegel and other early Romantics developed their notions of genius partly in opposition to Kant's relativising account in Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790). The philosopher had accorded genius a vital role in artistic innovation with his much-quoted dictum 'Genie ist die angeborene Gemütslage (ingenium), durch welche die Natur der Kunst die Regel gibt', only to insist that genius must always be regulated by 'Geschmack', a capacity that had to be learned and practised.3535 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, in Immanuel Kant, Werke, ed. Wilhelm Weischedel, 10 vols, Darmstadt 1983, VIII, pp. 237–623 (p. 405); Schmidt, Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens (note 6), I, pp. 354–61. In the same treatise, Kant limits genius to art and artists, not as a belittlement of other intellectual activities, but rather as a circumscription of the potential of genius itself. He sees it as instinctive and irrational, and therefore as irrelevant to progress in disciplines such as philosophy or the natural sciences. Schlegel indignantly rejects Kant's views, arguing that they amount to equating a sovereign, divine power with a 'Bärin' who is only able to bring 'rohe Geburten' into the world.3636 Schlegel, Die Kunstlehre (note 33), p. 83. In Schlegel's definition, by contrast, 'Genie' cannot be separated out from 'Verstand' or the power of aesthetic judgement; it is a synthetic force that subsumes everything required by art as well as everything required for a fulfilled existence. He calls for an 'Erweiterung des Begriffes Genie, die aber keine Vervielfachung, sondern vielmehr eine Zurückführung auf höhere Einheit ist', effectively rendering it coterminous with another Romantic ideal, that of 'Universalpoesie'.3737 Ibid., p. 84. This opening up of genius marks a decisive stage in what Reckwitz refers to as 'Universalisierungsprogramme des Schöpferischen'; he claims that these programmes gain ever more momentum over the nineteenth century in what amounts to a democratisation of 'Originalgenie'; see Reckwitz, Die Erfindung der Kreativität (note 14), pp. 77–81. On 'Universalpoesie', see Susan Bernofsky, 'The Infinite Imagination. Early Romanticism in Germany', in Michael Ferber (ed.), A Companion to European Romanticism, Oxford 2005, pp. 86–100. While Romanticism was rendering genius both more extreme and more generally applicable than it had ever been before, the German-speaking territories were racked by warfare and social turmoil. The stakes in genius rose still further as a result of the growing political dimension of culture and cultural history, its latent political potential brought to the fore by the exigencies of invasion and the polarising figure of Napoleon.3838 For its political potential Pre-Romanticism, see Schmidt-Dengler, Genius (note 10), in particular pp. 102–6. This politicisation manifests itself in what may initially seem to be two separate strands: imaginations of collective genius on the one hand, and the idealisation of individual leaders or politicians as geniuses on the other. The former strand drew on Herder's idea that each people or nation must have a uniquely authentic and creative 'Volksgeist', which he had conceived of under the influence of classicist genius when 'Genie' was first entering the German language.3939 Ibid., p. 183. Taken up by the poets and linguists of Romanticism, this idea developed into an ultimately tautological justification for German nationalism and, eventually, political unity. True genius, so the argument goes, stems from and resides in the people or 'Volk', who are the source of originary vigour and potential; if art or literature is to have value, it must be an expression of the 'Volk'. By definition, then, the works or achievements of those considered geniuses must necessarily be expressions of the 'Volk', and can therefore be co-opted to characterise and elevate the collective.4040 Schmidt, Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens (note 6), p. 214. A circular or symbiotic model emerges whereby genius itself, a particular collective and the genius individual can all be used to legitimise each other at will, or rather, as is politically and culturally expedient. At the same time, even as German-language literature enlisted in the fight against Napoleonic aggression and cultural expansion, German writers also began mapping the traditions and tropes of poetic genius onto Napoleon himself, creating an identificatory literary myth around him as a titanic embodiment of autonomous creativity.4141 See Barbara Beßlich, Der deutsch Napoleon-Mythos: Literatur und Erinnerung 1800–1945, Darmstadt 2007; see also Jan Niklas Howe's contribution to this special number. As this very brief summary has hopefully indicated, nineteenth-century German-language culture stood to inherit a notion of genius that was simultaneously under- and overdetermined – hugely influential but becoming increasingly unwieldy. By the 1820s, the excesses of Romanticism had ebbed, and the death of Goethe in 1832 marked the passing of German culture's single most significant embodiment of 'Genie'. It has been suggested that the following period was characterised by a degree of genius fatigue; as already noted, a lessening of interest can certainly be discerned in the existing secondary literature. Politically engagé Young German authors were concerned that earlier exemplars of genius, in particular Goethe, could have a negative effect on the vital energies of their generation.4242 Ohad Parnes, Ulrike Vedder and Stefan Willer, Das Konzept der Generation. Eine Wissenschafts- und Kulturgeschichte, Frankfurt a. M. 2008, p. 135. Caught in imitation anxiety and a sense of their own cultural 'lateness', writers aiming to capture the spirit of the age in the 1830s and 1840s seized upon the idea of 'Epigonentum', the diametric opposite of original, spontaneous creativity.4343 Ben Hutchinson, Lateness and Modern European Literature, Oxford 2016, pp. 95–136. Genius by no means disappears at this point, however. The Young Germans themselves provide an intriguing account of it in their views on their predecessors, in particular Goethe. They not only continue to hail him as a genius while criticising him personally as an egotistical and reactionary figure but also continue to hold fast to the notion of genius itself as a decisive, if undefinable, factor in cultural renewal and political progress.4444 Helmut Koopmann, Das Junge Deutschland. Analyse seines Selbstverständnisses, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 118–19 and 139–42. The shifts in the emphases and applicability of genius around this time can be traced in reference works, a particularly characteristic medium of the nineteenth century. As literacy increased and the popular and daily press took off, lexica aimed at the general public were rapidly established, appearing in dozens of editions over decades and offering a revealing index to the usage and understanding of topical terms.4545 Ulrike Spree, Das Streben nach Wissen. Eine vergleichende Gattungsgeschichte der populären Enzyklopädie in Deutschland und Großbritannien im 19. Jahrhundert, Tübingen 2000, pp. 33–9; Anja zum Hingst, Die Geschichte des Großen Brockhaus. Vom Conversationslexikon zur Enzyklopädie, Wiesbaden 1995, pp. 28–9. A diachronic comparison of the entries on 'Genie' in the hugely popular Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon (published in fourteen editions over the course of the nineteenth century) shows a decisive change in definition from the eighth edition in 1834 to the ninth in 1844. The text has been reduced by a third – although the lexicon itself grows longer with every successive edition – and a striking opening sentence has been cut that had remained unchanged over the previous four editions: 'Genie ist etwas so Geheimnißvolles in der menschlichen Natur, daß sich nur mit Schwierigkeit eine bestimmte Erklärung davon geben läßt'.4646 'Genie', in Allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyclopädie für die gebildeten Stände (Conversations-Lexikon), 12 vols and an index volume (1839), Leipzig 1833–7, IV (1834), pp. 597–8 (p. 597). Having first removed this deferential reference to genius's mysteriousness, the 1844 text goes on to include additions that insist on its usefulness rather than its originality: a genius is someone who 'in seinen Leistungen nicht blos original sondern auch musterhaft ist. Denn Originalität ohne Musterhaftigkeit könnte auch Narrheit sein; etwas dem Ähnliches bezeichnet man bisweilen durch das Wort Originalgenie'.4747 'Genie', in Allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyklopädie für die gebildeten Stände (Conversations-Lexikon), 15 vols, Leipzig 1843–8, VI (1844), p. 63. In the previous editions, 'Originalgenie' had been noted as a pleonasm, not as a pejorative term. While limiting genius in this respect, the 1844 edition opened it up in others: whereas the 1834 and previous editions had ended by remarking that 'die Künste […] der eigentliche Wirkungskreis des Genies [sind]',4848 'Genie', in Allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyclopädie, IV (1834), p. 598. the 1844 entry tersely rejects this notion in its closing sentence: 'Das Wort Genie ausschließend oder auch nur vorzugsweise von Künstlern zu gebrauchen, ist gar kein Grund vorhanden.' And for the first time, the main text lists as possibilities not only military, political and mathematical, but also technical genius.4949 See note 47. Die seit dieser Zeit Genies in Deutschland vorstellen wollten, […] schaueten mit vornehmen Hohnlächeln, zuweilen um so stolzer, je hohler ihre Köpfe waren, auf das 'Volk der Platten' herab, wie sie alle diejenigen nannten, die nicht mit ihnen das Absolute anschauen […] mochten; sie lallten in Versen und in Prose unaufhörlich von dem Unendlichen, Heiligen und Höchsten.5151 Friedrich Bouterwek, Geschichte der deutschen Poesie und Beredsamkeit, 5 vols, Göttingen 1801–19, V: Ungefähr vom Jahre 1770 bis auf unsre Zeit, p. 365. Nevertheless, despite his disparagement of both Romanticism and the 'Sturm und Drang' as movements that featured genius as a key element of their aesthetic programme and habitus, Bouterwek himself holds fast to the same term. He is adamant that neither movement has any relevance to the progress of 'true' genius: 'Weder die eine, noch die andre, konnte dem wahren Genie die Wege versperren, die es sich selbst bahnt.'5252 Ibid., p. 366. No further details are given as to what constitutes 'true' genius or how it might work: the ostensible objectivity of this proto-academic genre does not stretch to resolving genius's ambivalence. Bouterwek seems to assume, like the Romantics he decries, that its effects and products will speak for themselves, blaze their own trail. The opacity of genius continues to ensure its efficacy here: Bouterwek's use of it confirms how indispensable it had become in accounting for and categorising cultural achievements, even as it continued to resist explanation or definition itself. Attributing genius had therefore become a way of lifting individuals or phenomena above argument, of conveying their timeless significance as well as the self-evident impo
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