Genius in France : an idea and its uses
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Genius in France : an idea and its uses
Princeton University Press, c2015
Available at 2 libraries
Note
Includes bibliography (p. [251]-265) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This engaging book spans three centuries to provide the first full account of the long and diverse history of genius in France. Exploring a wide range of examples from literature, philosophy, and history, as well as medicine, psychology, and journalism, Ann Jefferson examines the ways in which the idea of genius has been ceaselessly reflected on and redefined through its uses in these different contexts. She traces its varying fortunes through the madness and imposture with which genius is often associated, and through the observations of those who determine its presence in others. Jefferson considers the modern beginnings of genius in eighteenth-century aesthetics and the works of philosophes such as Diderot. She then investigates the nineteenth-century notion of national and collective genius, the self-appointed role of Romantic poets as misunderstood geniuses, the recurrent obsession with failed genius in the realist novels of writers like Balzac and Zola, the contested category of female genius, and the medical literature that viewed genius as a form of pathology.
She shows how twentieth-century views of genius narrowed through its association with IQ and child prodigies, and she discusses the different ways major theorists--including Sartre, Barthes, Derrida, and Kristeva--have repudiated and subsequently revived the concept. Rich in narrative detail, Genius in France brings a fresh approach to French intellectual and cultural history, and to the burgeoning field of genius studies.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Introduction 1 Part I: Enlightenment Genius 17 Chapter 1: The Eighteenth Century: Mimesis and Effect 19 Chapter 2: Genius Obscured: Diderot 35 Part II: Nineteenth-Century Genius: The Idiom of the Age 45 Chapter 3: Language, Religion, Nation 47 Chapter 4: Individual versus Collective Genius 61 Chapter 5: The Romantic Poet and the Brotherhood of Genius 67 Chapter 6: Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, and the Dynasty of Genius 81 Part III: Genius in the Clinic 89 Chapter 7: Genius under Observation: Lelut 91 Chapter 8: Genius, Neurosis, and Family Trees: Moreau de Tours 104 Chapter 9: Genius Restored to Health 114 Part IV: Failure, Femininity, and the Realist Novel 123 Chapter 10: A Novel of Female Genius: Mme de Stael's Corinne 125 Chapter 11: Balzac's Louis Lambert: Genius and the Feminine Mediator 137 Chapter 12: Creativity and Procreation in Zola's L'OEuvre 146 Part V: Precocity and Child Prodigies 159 Chapter 13: Exemplarity and Performance in Literature for Children 161 Chapter 14: Alfred Binet and the Measurement of Intelligence 173 Chapter 15: Minou Drouet: The Prodigy under Suspicion 183 Part VI: Genius in Theory 193 Chapter 16: Cultural Critique and the End of Genius: Barthes, Sartre 195 Chapter 17: The Return of Genius: Mad Poets 204 Chapter 18: Julia Kristeva and Female Genius 212 Chapter 19: Derrida, Cixous, and the Impostor 219 Notes 227 Bibliography 251 Index 267
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