Beyond the Reach of Skill and Art

On the first day of classes, a new freshman walked out of the Princeton library feeling exalted by his new status and the ivied walls about him. Nearby, loafing on the grass, a bum in baggy pants, ragged sweater, and unkempt long hair was staring into space. Feeling a mixture of pity and contempt, the freshman congratulated himself that his own life was so different. Weeks later the freshman learned with chagrin that the "bum" was Albert Einstein, one of those exceptional persons for whom the world reserves the term "genius."

Yet when we call Einstein, Mozart, Beethoven, Edison and others like them "geniuses,” it contributes to our misunderstanding of the word. The Latin origins of genius contain the idea of creative power—related to words like gene, generate, even genie (as in Aladdin's lamp). All come from the Latin verb gignere, meaning to beget. Genius, therefore, is a power, not a person.

Rather than label a person "a genius," we more accurately say that he or she has a genius for music, mathematics, gardening . . . whatever. Genius means that the person's gift or talent sometimes, or often, achieves results beyond the reach of skill and art. No one is or has a full-time genius. The muse or inspiration has bestowed "a grace beyond the reach of art." And that muse, inspiration, or grace is the genius.

Einstein obviously had a genius for the higher math and physics, but little genius for fashion or hair arrangement. In fact, as a child of seven years, his teachers considered him mentally challenged. As an adult, he supposedly had difficulty adding up his pocket change, and though he was a good violinist, he was hardly a musical genius. He shaved using hand soap. When someone suggested shaving cream, he said, "Two soaps is too complicated."

Years ago, I heard T. S. Eliot read his poems in Chicago. He pointed out fourteen famous lines in The Waste Land that he said came to him in ten minutes and required no revision. The next two lines, rather insignificant ones, took him two days of labor. His genius, or muse, was inconstant, as is everyone's.

The notion of genius as spirit goes back to the Roman use of the word to describe the tutelary spirit believed to accompany each person from birth to death. Christian tradition later suggested that a guardian angel accompanies each person, and sometimes a fallen angel, too—a tempter still called a person's "evil genius."

The polymath John Milton had a genius for encyclopedic learning and for writing epic poetry as well as immortal essays on human liberty. He sought the Holy Spirit as his "genius" to inspire Paradise Lost. He opens Book III with the famous invocation to the Third Person of the Trinity:

Hail holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born . . .
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, . . .
that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.


Christianity and the other higher religions teach that God is the source of all good things, including whatever inspirations—whatever touches of genius or brush of an angel's wing—we might feel in our lives. Having taught creative writing for more than thirty years, I'm convinced that every person has a talent for something, and that everyone, at moments, may be inspired. Your talent may be for cooking, for teaching, for gardening, for carpentry, for writing, for counseling, for painting, or playing the guitar. What creative spirit breathes on your gift—what angel's wing brushes you, what muse visits, or what spark from Heaven falls—when you do better than you know, in those inspired moments, one may say that you are touched by genius.