IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB001561009

Declaring Genius: Literary and Scientific Claims of Artistic Genius in Late-Victorian Britain (2012)

University of Delaware
Stetz, Margaret D.
Ardis, Ann L.

Publication Date: 2012
Edition Details: Advisor: Stetz, Margaret D.; Ann L. Ardis
Physical Details: 353 pp.
Language: English

Outside Links

Academia.edu

This dissertation studies the struggle between late-Victorian authors and scientists over producing and circulating scientific and cultural ideas of creative genius. Beginning in the 1860s when Francis Galton asserted that genius is a biological fact, scientists began "studying" genius, specifically artistic genius, in an attempt to identify the origins and nature of geniuses. Their conclusions characterized geniuses as anything from superior artists meant to revitalize the health of the race to degenerate beings who were perpetuating a wide-spread devolution through the circulation of their art. Furthermore, these writers--including professional scientists and popular writers hailing from the fields of biology, psychology, education, sociology, drama, journalism, art, and others--examined the personalities, health, temperament, intelligence, and creativity of authors while at the same time made claims about the superiority of their artistic output. This new form of artistic criticism held enormous implications for authors who sought the label of genius to achieve critical and commercial success, specifically because these genius theories circulated within both scientific and cultural spheres. The changes in genius theories through the final decades of the nineteenth century indicate a preoccupation with genius in order to both preserve "good" genius and eradicate "bad" genius. Artists found themselves amongst these shifting discourses and responded to such characterizations within their work. Therefore, I explore the ways in which authors contended with scientific ideas about their creative genius either through fictional portrayals of artistic geniuses or through representations of real-life literary geniuses. More specifically, I consider how the authors Amy Levy, Sarah Grand, and Oscar Wilde battled for control over their artistic genius in order to establish a place for themselves as geniuses and, in the process, to change the discourse about who could be a genius and who would have the power to decide this.

...More

Description Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. (2012). ProQuest Doc. ID 926963113.

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001561009/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Richardson, Angelique; (2003)
Love and Eugenics in the Late Nineteenth Century: Rational Reproduction and the New Woman (/isis/citation/CBB000501082/)

Article Stiles, Anne; (2009)
Literature in Mind: H. G. Wells and the Evolution of the Mad Scientist (/isis/citation/CBB001030597/)

Book Sternberg, Robert J.; (2003)
Anatomy of Impact: What Makes the Great Works of Psychology Great (/isis/citation/CBB000301534/)

Book Harman, Peter M.; (2009)
The Culture of Nature in Britain (/isis/citation/CBB000952764/)

Book Dawson, Gowan; (2012)
Victorian Science and Literature (/isis/citation/CBB001251062/)

Book Page, Judith W; Smith, Elise Lawton; (2011)
Women, Literature, and the Domesticated Landscape: England's Disciples of Flora, 1780--1870 (/isis/citation/CBB001214713/)

Book Dean, Dennis R.; (2007)
Romantic Landscapes: Geology and Its Cultural Influence in Britain, 1765--1835 (/isis/citation/CBB000774364/)

Article Luigi Dei; (2022)
Creativity in Art, Literature, Music, Science, and Inventions (/isis/citation/CBB705585979/)

Book Lightman, Alan P.; (2005)
A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and Human the Spirit (/isis/citation/CBB000520027/)

Article Cole, Simon A.; (2007)
Twins, Twain, Galton, and Gilman: Fingerprinting, Individualization, Brotherhood, and Race in Pudd'nhead Wilson (/isis/citation/CBB000932147/)

Thesis Cannariato, Christy A.; (2007)
The Probability of Progress: Resisting History in Galton and Modern Fiction,1869--1936 (/isis/citation/CBB001561289/)

Article Jen Hill; (2014)
Whorled: Cyclones, Systems, and the Geographical Imagination (/isis/citation/CBB144361018/)

Article Elise Smith; (2020)
“Why do we measure mankind?” Marketing anthropometry in late-Victorian Britain (/isis/citation/CBB717605789/)

Article Waller, John C.; (2001)
Gentlemanly Men of Science: Sir Francis Galton and the Professionalization of the British Life-Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB000100491/)

Article Radick, Gregory; (2011)
Physics in the Galtonian Sciences of Heredity (/isis/citation/CBB001023997/)

Book Winston, Andrew S.; (2004)
Defining Difference: Race and Racism in the History of Psychology (/isis/citation/CBB000471026/)

Article Renwick, Chris; (2011)
From Political Economy to Sociology: Francis Galton and the Social-Scientific Origins of Eugenics (/isis/citation/CBB001024706/)

Article Waller, John C.; (2001)
Ideas of heredity, reproduction and eugenics in Britain, 1800--1875 (/isis/citation/CBB000100764/)

Article Sera-Shriar, Efram; (2015)
Anthropometric Portraiture and Victorian Anthropology: Situating Francis Galton's Photographic Work in the Late 1870s (/isis/citation/CBB001553619/)

Article Lundgren, Frans; (2013)
The Politics of Participation: Francis Galton's Anthropometric Laboratory and the Making of Civic Selves (/isis/citation/CBB001320133/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}