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The Figure Genius in the Renaissance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

D. T. Starnes
D. T. Starnes*
Affiliation:
University of Texas
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Extract

The figure Genius in English literature has received attention from scholars from the eighteenth century to the present day, especially with reference to Spenser, Jonson, and Milton. Perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of the subject is that by Professor E. C. Knowlton, in a series of articles in the 1920s, tracing the appearance and literary use of the figure from antiquity, through the middle ages, to the end of the sixteenth century. As the substance of much of Knowlton's investigation is in his study of 'The Genii of Spenser' (1928), this article merits a statement of the author's purpose and procedure.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 11 , 1964 , pp. 234 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1964

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References

1 Biographical and bibliographical data on all the editors and the commentators on ““Spenser's use of Genius appear in the bibliography and commentaries of the Variorum edition of the Faerie Queene, vols, II and III.

2 ‘The Allegorical Figure Genius', Classical Philology xv (1920), 380-384; ‘Genius as an Allegorical Figure', M.L.N, XXXIX (1924), 89-95; ‘The Genii of Spenser', S.P. xxv (1928), 439-456.

3 Knowlton is primarily concerned with the character and role of Genius as he appears in the Bower of Bliss (F. Q. n, 12, 47) and in the Garden of Adonis (F. Q. III, 6, 31 ff.). He does not treat Genius and the derived terms ‘genial', etc. as exemplified in Epithalamion (398 ff.).

4 In the same entry Perotti continues: ‘Varro scribit Deum se arbitrari esse animam mundi, & ut homo sapiens, cum sit ex corpore & anima, tamen ab anima dicitur sapiens, ita mundum Deum dici ab anima, & corpore constet, ad haec mundum diuidi duas partes, caelum & terram …'.

5 Compare F. Q. (III, 6, 30) and Upton's comment on this passage (Var. ed., m, 325). Between Calepine's exposition of Genius and that of Vives in his commentary on The City of God (quoted in Var. ed., II, 375) there is a fairly close correspondence.

6 Here is the Latin of Estienne: ‘Genius, dicebatur a priscis deus naturae, & qui omnium rerum gignendarum vim haberet, unde cuiusque rei dicebatur suus Genius: hominique duos genios assignabant, bonum & malum. Accipitur pro ipsa natura. Quidam ipsam animam vel Deum, vel spiritum esse volunt qui mortales ad voluptatem incitet: vnde Geniales ab antiquis appellabantur, qui ad curandam cuticulam erant promptiores. Inde proverbium, Indulgere genio. Fuerunt etiam qui aquam, terram, ignem, aerem, item duodecim signa, & solem & lunam, deos genios facerent: & a gerendo, quod multa gerere possent, primum Gerulos, deinde Genios appellatos esse putarent.'

7 The Italian version of Cartari's book was printed in Venice, 1556, 1571, 1580, 1592, 1609; at Lyons, in Latin, 1581; in Padua, 1608, etc.

8 From Sir Francis Poyntz’ translation of Cebes’ Tabula (c. 1530) quoted by F. M. Padelford in Var. ed., III, 256.

9 In his Symbolic Persons in Jonson's Masques (1948) Professor Allan Gilbert treats Genius briefly (pp. 110-111). Professor Gilbert is principally concerned with the Genius Urbis in The King's Entertainment in passing to his Coronation (sometimes referred to as King James’ Entertainment). He cites asjonson's source Gyraldus and Rosinus, authorities whom Jonson himself listed in the margin adjacent to the description of the Genius Urbis. Quoting Gyraldus, Gilbert writes, ‘Genius is sometimes boyish or youthful, sometimes an old man, and … he is crowned with platanus, which is arbor genialis; sometimes he appears in the form of a serpent.’ With this compare Cartari's words: ‘Hinc est factum, vt aliqui Genium serpentis forma emnxerint, aliqui puerili, iuuenili aliqui, nonnulli senili, vt Cebes in Tabula’ (Imagines deorum, p. 300). On the following page Cartari refers to the Genius of the Roman people and protector of their city as holding in his right hand a wine bowl (pateram) in the manner of sacrificing, and in the left hand a cornucopia. They crowned this Genius sometimes with platano, or plane tree leaves, sometimes with flowers. In figures 60 and 61 Gilbert has reproduced the Penates and Genius from Cartari.