Beginning of I-search

Ivaylo Bahtchevanov

AP English: British Lit

Coon

14 November 2010

                                                I search: Genius

When I first came to America at the ripe age of four, I found myself being taught the English language most effectively not from my teachers or parents, but from social interaction with kids my age and with cartoons that engaged my immature mind. I found myself particularly entertained by a quirky show called Dexter’s Laboratory, in which a nine-year-old boy genius keeps a secret laboratory (with a stress on the second syllable) filled with high-tech equipment. Despite the complicated system of passwords and hidden switches required to decode to gain entrance into this lab, his dim-witted, happy-go-lucky sister Dee Dee always mysteriously gains entrance and messes up his experiments with her hands-on curious nature. The stark contrast between Dee Dee and Dexter stood out and was the first instance in which I encountered the word genius. Children at a young age have the capacity to learn languages fairly easily. During the “critical learning period,” any connotations that help them remember certain words become imprinted in their memory and tend to stick around as they get older. If these children are learning a second language, however, then these associations become even more prevalent in remembering the specific words. So for the next few years of my life, whenever someone used the word genius, I immediately thought of that strange and obnoxious child closing himself off from the outside world to work in his laboratory. Consequently, I became very self-conscious and frustrated when someone at school would refer to me by that adjective whenever I did well on a test or an assignment. This image of the word dug itself even deeper into my mind as other television shows such as Jimmy Neutron once again portrayed a genius as a socially awkward and obnoxiously smart little boy who performed experiments for seemingly no apparent reason.

As I grew older, my overall opinion of the word changed, yet the association I made between genius and Dexter when I was four years old remains in the back of my mind to this day. I chose to explore the origins of this word because I wanted to learn how this word came to have both such a negative and positive connotation simultaneously. My search gave me insight into how genius came to mean what it does today and transformed the way I perceived it. What fascinated me most about my search was not only how incredibly far off the original meanings were from today’s common understanding for it but also how inherently yet subtly linked these different definitions are to one another. Together, they lay out the blue prints to our human identity.

My first pit-stop in this search was the Oxford English Dictionary. Marking the birth of this word from the Latin genii, this source traces the evolution of genius from its most primitive meanings to its current definition. In the first meaning, the dictionary references the classical pagan belief: “the tutelary god or attendant spirit allotted to every person at birth, to govern his fortunes and determine his character, and finally to conduct him out of the world.” I found this description very interesting because to the Romans, genius is the part of us that makes us human: our very soul and conscience. The word is also the proper name of an allegorical person in the story Rom de la Rose who demonstrates the moral instincts of mankind as limits to the appetite for sexual passion. In other words, this character is the epitome of human conscious thought and represents the higher emotions that set us apart from the primitive and unrestrained emotions that govern the rest of the animal kingdom. The second Latin definition added a more festive aspect to the word. After 1605, genius took on the meaning, “the spirit viewed as propitiated by festivities; hence, one’s appetite.” At first glance, this definition appeared to mean the exact opposite of the first, embodying the very sentiment the first was trying to control through moderation; however, the more I thought about it, the more I began to see the similarity between the two. The Romans valued reason and balance as essential to the happiness and well-being of every human. Thus, even celebrations and festivities in their excess would be detrimental to our health. The connotation of this word would be hence one of disciplined merriment. The third definition refers to the two mutually opposed spirits by which every person was supposed to be governed throughout his life. The idea that our lives, our personalities, our daily actions are governed by two forces—one good and one bad—demonstrates the yin-yang concept of balance that the two previous meanings symbolized. It also points out that although we are gifted with a conscience to guide us, we do not always act in accordance with it. Even though these three definitions are spiritual, their meanings have practical implications to our everyday actions and thus define us.

The fourth definition crosses into the realm of the quasi-mythological, taking the focus away from our human nature. OED defines genius as “a demon or spiritual being in general, as rendering of Arab, jinn, the collective name of a class of spirits supposed to interfere in human affairs.”