Nabokov and the word 'Genius'.

[PDF] What does this word genius mean? Genius meant originally one's guardian deity, like one's guardian angel, one's good angel. It represented the higher powers overshadowing a man, guiding him and directing him; representing, we may say, one's own higher self, conceived of as an independent, or quasi-independent, personality that was one's source, i.e. the ordinary self's source, of direction and inspiration and guidance. We get the same sort of idea behind the classical concept of the Muses. When you read, say, Homer's Iliad or Odyssey, what does he do at the beginning? He invokes the muses, he says, 'Goddess, or goddesses, inspire me'. And all the classical poets did this. Milton does it at the beginning of Paradise Lost, except that he invokes the heavenly muse and not the profane muse. The idea is the same. You are invoking some higher source, some higher power, which seems outside you but which at the same time is really and truly your own highest self. And it is from there that the creation comes.

Incidentally, it is interesting to notice an observation on the use of the word genius by that well-known modern writer, Nabokov, and he makes the following observation (he was being interviewed by one of those rather pertinacious people who ask all sorts of questions and one wonders how people sometimes have the patience to answer the questions): the particular question was whether Nabokov sees himself as a genius. He said, in reply:

The word genius is passed around rather generously isn't it, at least in English, because its Russian counterpart, geni, is a term brimming with a sort of throaty awe, and is used only in the case of a very small number of writers: Shakespeare, Milton, Pushkin, Tolstoy. To such deeply beloved authors as Turgenev and Chekhov, Russians assign the thinner term 'talent', not 'genius'. It is a bizarre example of semantic discrepancy, the same word being more substantial in one language than in another. Although my Russian and my English are practically coeval, I still feel appalled and puzzled at seeing 'genius' applied to any important story-teller, such as Maupassant or Maugham. Genius still means to me, in my Russian fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The genius of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.

Now one might not agree with his estimation of Henry James, but I would think the force of the distinction is clear. But there is something else I would like to draw your attention to while we are at it. And this is the interviewer's first question; and it is rather extraordinary. I don't know where he got his questions from, but the first question was: 'What distinguishes us from the animals?', and what do you think Nabokov says? He says:

Being aware of being aware of being. In other words, if I not only know that I am, but also know that I know it, then I belong to the human species. All the rest follows, the glorious thought, poetry, a vision of the universe. In that respect, the gap between ape and man is immeasurably greater than the one between amoeba and ape. The difference between an ape's memory and a human memory is the difference between an ampersand and the British Museum Library.

Art and the spiritual life:

1. Art and the Spirtual life.
2. The Artist as more Aware or Self-Conscious.
3. The Artist as Creative.
4. What is Art?
5. The Artist as wicked, immoral and selfish?
6. Nabokov and the word Genius.
7. * Values that can transform our lives.
8. When an Artist creates he objectifies.

By Urgyen Sangharakshita.

[in French] [Introduction] [Buddha] [Buddhism] [Meditation] [Sangharakshita] [FWBO] [the Centre]

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Dernière mise à jour:
04 avril, 2007.