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    'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation
    'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation
    'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation
    Ebook84 pages1 hour

    'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation

    By Gretchen Graf Pahl and Aaron Hill

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 25, 2013
    'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation

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      Book preview

      'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation - Gretchen Graf Pahl

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and

      Preface to The Creation, by Aaron Hill

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation

      Author: Aaron Hill

      Commentator: Gretchen Graf Pahl

      Release Date: May 20, 2005 [EBook #15870]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF GENIUS/PREFACE TO THE CREATION ***

      Produced by David Starner, Sankar Viswanathan and the

      Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

      Series Four

      Men, Manners and Critics

      No. 2

      Anonymous, Of Genius, in The Occasional Paper,

      Volume III, Number 10 (1719)

      and

      Aaron Hill, Preface to The Creation (1720)

      With an Introduction by

      Gretchen Graf Pahl

      The Augustan Reprint Society

      March, 1949

      Price: One Dollar

      GENERAL EDITORS

      RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan

      EDWARD NILES HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles

      H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., University of California, Los Angeles

      ASSISTANT EDITOR

      W. EARL BRITTON, University of Michigan

      ADVISORY EDITORS

      EMMETT L. AVERY, State College of Washington

      BENJAMIN BOYCE, University of Nebraska

      LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, University of Michigan

      CLEANTH BROOKS, Yale University

      JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University

      ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago

      SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota

      ERNEST MOSSNER, University of Texas

      JAMES SUTHERLAND, Queen Mary College, London

      Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author

      by

      Edwards Brothers, Inc.

      Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.

      CONTENTS

      INTRODUCTION

      OF GENIUS

      THE CREATION

      THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

      [Transcriber's Note: Some of the latin footnotes and the errata were difficult or impossible to read. These are annotated.]

      INTRODUCTION

      The anonymous essay Of Genius, which appeared in the Occasional Paper of 1719, still considers genius largely a matter of aptitude or talent, and applies the term to the mechanick as well as the fine arts. The work is, in fact, essentially a pamphlet on education. The author's main concern is training, and study, and conscious endeavor. Naturally enough, his highest praise—even where poetry is in question—is reserved for those solid Augustan virtues of judgment and good sense.

      And yet the pamphlet reveals some of the tangled roots from which the later concept of the original or primitive genius grew. For here are two prerequisites of that later, more extravagant concept. One is the author's positive delight in the infinite differences of human temperaments and talents—a delight from which might spring the preference for original or unique works of art. The other is his conviction that there is something necessary and foreordained about those differences: a conviction essential to faith in the artist who is apparently at the mercy of a genius beyond his own control. The importance of this latter belief was long ago indicated in Paul Kaufman's Heralds of Original Genius.

      While his tone is perhaps more exuberant than that of most of his immediate contemporaries, there is nothing particularly new in our author's interest in those aspects of human nature which render a man different from his fellows. It is true that the main stress of neoclassical thought had rested on the fundamental likeness of all men in all ages, and had sought an ideal and universal norm in morals, conduct, and art. But there had always been counter currents making for a recognition of the inescapable differences among various races and individuals. Such deviations were often merely tolerated, but toward the close of the seventeenth century more and more voices had praised human diversity. England, in particular, began to take notice of the number of originals abounding in the land.

      At least as old as the delight in human differences was the belief in the foreordained nature of at least those differences resulting in specific vocational aptitudes. This is the conviction that each man has at birth—innately and inevitably—a peculiar bent for some particular contribution to human society. Environment is not ignored by the man who wrote Of Genius, for he insists that each man's bent may be greatly developed by favorable circumstances and proper education, and, conversely, that it may be entirely frustrated by unpropitious circumstances or wilful neglect. But in no way can a man's inborn talent for one thing be converted to a talent for anything else.

      In the works of many Augustan writers, too, it is easy to see how the enthusiasm for individualism, later to become one of the hallmarks of romanticism, actually sprang from an earlier faith in a God-directed universe of law and order. There is a kind of universal law of supply and demand, and the argument is simply that each link in the human chain, like those in the animate and inanimate worlds above and below it, is predestined to a specific function for the better ordering of the whole. Lewis Maidwell, for instance, still employs the medieval and Renaissance analogy of the correspondence between the human body and the social organism (An Essay upon the Necessity and Excellency of Education):

      Upon Consideration we find this Difference of Tempers to

      arise from Providence, and the Law of the Creation, and

      to be most Evident in al Irrational, and Inanimat Beings ... One

      Man is no more design'd for Al Arts, than Al Arts

      for One Man. We are born Confaederats, mutually to help

      One another, therefor appropriated in the Body Politic,

      to this,

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