The GeniusIn Blake, Leopardi,

Kant

Blake and the Poetic Genius“Poetic Genius is the true Man,

and the body or outward form of man is derived from Poetic Genius. As men are alike in outward form, so, and with the same infinite variety, are all alike in the Poetic Genius. No man can think, write or speak from his heart, but he must intend Truth. Thus all sects of Philosophy are from Poetic Genius adapted to the weaknesses of every individual”. (From “All religions are one”)

Engraving for “The Tiger”

Blake (I)The universality of Poetic Genius: genius

is not something held by specially endowed individuals, but it’s a shared faculty of men. What makes the difference is the capability of the individual to put his own share of genius into action, overcoming the appearence of the five senses and the traps of reason. So genius is strongly connected to imagination: B. also believed in the importance of dream (Blake = “visionary poet”, because he used to take inspiration from his own dreams).

Blake (II)As a person, the genius is not

the one who favours his own feelings and talents: otherwise he couldn’t present himself as a prophet, as the bearer of a universally valid truth, that which is his “mission”. He must “intend truth”: he must look inside himself through his inner eye, but in such a different way from the Romantics: it’s not an act of self-celebration, but an enquiry made for the rest of the world.

Blake (III)The distinction between

Poetry and Philosophy: Poetry itself is Genius, so it prescinds from the individual (see Shelley in his “Defence of poetry”); Philosophy instead is the level where Poetry and the individual meet, so in a way it’s contaminated by particular “weaknesses” and can’t aspire to universality.

A Defence of Poetry

In 1821 Shelley wrote, arguing for the universal value of art, that all the poems of the past, of the present and of the future times are episodes or fragments of one infinite poem, composed by all the poets of the world (it’s a common theme, renewed by Emerson and Valéry). Valéry, in particular, spoke about a “Spirit”, responsible for all world’s literature. The Artist Ovelwhelmed by the Greatness

of Ancient Ruins - Fussli

Romanticism• Schlegel: “All the history of modern poetry is

an everlasting commentary to the short text of philosophy… poetry and philosophy must get together.” “The philosopher-poet and the poet-philosopher are prophets.”

• Hőlderlin: “Man is a God when dreaming, a beggar when thinking.”

• Novalis: “Only an artist can guess the meaning of life.” “Poetry is something divine.”

Kant (I)• “Genius is the natural talent which gives art

a rule.” Kant puts into light four basic features of Genius: his originality; his capability to be exemplary (which distinguish ingeniousness from absurdity); his inability to explain his way of working (“The author himself of a ingenious product doesn’t know how he got to it”); his being an artist: science’s never the result of genius because it can be imitated and explained.

Kant (II)• What makes a genius different from all the

other people is his possessing a particular sort of imagination: not the reproductive one, typical of common people; but the creative one. That means that he’s able to operate a free play of imagination and intellect, overstepping the limits of the theoretical reason. Whether he gets to any kind of truth can’t be demonstrated; for sure he reaches the highest peaks of Beauty.

Leopardi (I)• For Leopardi the genius is the one who unites

within himself the true philosophy and the poetic illusion. The poetic illusion doesn’t hide the truth; it’s only a sort of healer for the poet who seeks comfort away from the awareness of man’s necessary unhappiness. Indeed the poet-genius is the one who, because of his “noble nature” and superior sensibility, feels more deeply the pain and the insignificance of human life: he’s the one who holds the truth - and the truth is that life is nothing.

Leopardi (II)• The genius’ illusion is nothing like the common

man’s dreaming: dream is a sort of “wrong” illusion, because it’s not followed by the awareness that illusion itself is vain and

fictitious like the whole of life. Truth can’t in any way be found in dreams nor in imagination:

it’s a result of the use of reason. As Severino said: “The disenchantment of genius is

complete: reason, fully disclosed, shows the nothingness of Being.”

Leopardi (III)• Genio - Così tra sognare e fantasticare andrai

consumando la vita: non con altra utilità che di consumarla; che questo è l’unico frutto che al mondo se ne può avere […]

• Tasso - La tua conversazione mi riconforta pure assai. Non che ella interrompa la mia tristezza: ma questa per la più parte del tempo è come una notte oscurissima, senza luna né stelle; mentre son teco, somiglia al bruno dei crepuscoli, piuttosto grato che molesto. (From “Dialogo di Torquato Tasso e del suo genio familiare”)

To sum up

The Genius for Blake• Imagination - dream• Universality (not an

individual feature)• Genius = Art (Poetry)

Neither philosophy nor science

• Leads to Truth

The Genius for Kant and the Romantics

• Creative imagination• “Natural talent”, rare

privilege (can’t be imitated but stands as an example)

• Genius = Art + philosophy

• Leads to the Beautiful

The Genius for Leopardi• Refuses dream and imagination to privilege his

rational side • Is a “noble nature” superior to common people• Genius = Poetry + Philosophy• Holds the Truth (= vanity of human life) and

also suffers much deeper than anyone else from this awareness