Of course, Victorians were not the first to
correlate genius and mental illness. This association began with classical
authors, notably Plato, Seneca, and Aristotle, who famously declared that ‘‘no
great genius has ever been without some touch of madness.’’ (Seneca attributes
this remark to Aristotle in ‘‘De Tranquillitate Animi’’ [On Tranquility of Mind],
in Moral Essays 17:10) ‘‘Genius’’ is in fact a Latin word derived from
the Greek ginesthai (‘‘to be born or created’’). In classical pagan
tradition, a ‘‘genius’’ referred to the guiding or tutelary spirit allotted to
each person at birth. From the Renaissance until the eighteenth century,
English authors frequently invoked the older meaning of genius as tutelary
spirit. This usage gradually gave way in the nineteenth century to the now
familiar definition of genius as superlative intellectual ability (or a person
possessing such ability). (This etymology was compiled from two sources:
‘‘Genius’’ in the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. [1989]; and
Andreasen, The Creative Brain, 6–7.) (Anne Stiles, “Literature in Mind: H. G. Wells and the Evolution of the
Mad Scientist,” Journal of the History of Ideas 70, no. 2 [April 2009]:
321)
