Homer, leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Mozart, Tolstoy, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Marie Curie, Einstein – these artists and scientists are world-famous and accomplished. Beyond that, what else do they have in common?
Many people may answer this way: they have changed mankind's perception of the world forever through unremitting efforts, and they all have the character of genius.
To be precise, however, we find it difficult to define genius, especially when targeting contemporary people.
Although Pablo Picasso has extraordinary fame and influence, whether he can be respected as a genius is still inconclusive. In the literary world, Virginia Woolf is also the same.
Although Stephen Hawking is a contemporary genius comparable to Einstein in the public mind, knowledgeable physicists do not think so, and only regard him as one of many cosmological giants.
There is no doubt that genius is personality and unique. However, genius must have one thing in common, which neither ordinary people nor professionals can deny.
Every biologist still had to read Darwin's work, draw new ideas from it, and conduct new experiments. Physicists need Einstein's theory.
Shakespeare's plays, Mozart's melodies and harmonies depart from England and Austria, respectively, across the barriers of language and culture, to the rest of the world, still touching people's hearts.
Contemporary "geniuses" come and go in a hurry, but the ideas of genius are eternal. The work of genius has a quality that transcends a momentary fame, breaking free from the shackles of time and space, which is a short-lived antonym.
The modern English word "genius" originated in ancient Rome and refers to the "guardian spirit" in Latin, which links individuals, places, mechanisms, etc., with the power of fate and the change of times.
Similar to the ancient Greek "daimon", "genius" accompanies the guardian for a lifetime.
The poet Horace defined it this way in the 1st century BC: "... Governing the signs of each person's birth, managing his nature, being born with us, dying with us, changing appearance with man, white or black in color. ”
But the "genius" of the roman population was not necessarily related to ability and creativity.
It wasn't until the Enlightenment that "genius" acquired a completely different modern meaning than in the past: genius, referring to a person who exhibits extraordinary intelligence or creativity, both innate and acquired.
Homer, a divinely inspired poet, was revered for more than two thousand years, but only became a genius in the 18th century.
The present meaning of genius derives from the Latin word "ingenium" (instead of "genius"), which means "nature", "innate ability", "talent".
In 1711, the word "genius" was widely circulated, and Joseph Addison wrote: "The most common evaluation of a writer is to call him a genius." ”
In the middle of the 18th century,
Attempts to give a definition of genius, focusing on the importance of acquired effort, have a distinctly modern bent.
Painter Joshua Reynolds mentions: "Every artist's greatest ambition is to become a genius. ”
But in 1826, the critic William Hazlitt pointed out: "Great men never consider themselves geniuses ... If a person is going to meet his inner standards of greatness, he must always regard greatness as insignificant. ”
In the case of Picasso, he publicly stated: "I don't see myself as an artist in the strict sense of the word when I am alone." Giotto, Rembrandt and Goya were great painters. ”