Doctor Who and the Ingenious Genie of Inspiration
Eventus conspiro.
Eerie, that having taken a break from revising Berkeley, Hume, induction, idealism, and causality, I would decide to start Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths, the first story of which (Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius) is entirely concerned with just such subjects, mentioning Hume and Berkeley by name. You’ll forgive me for not elaborating on it, as I have just completed said revision. Anyway, stumbling upon that story, it was as though I had mistakenly started reading my course materials. Eerie.
Maybe Jack Black should oust RTD. (Because it appears I can’t discuss anything without linking it to a rant about televisual light entertainment.)
Inspiration, apparently, means ‘breathed upon’. (Which kind of figures if you think about it.) The inspired recieves the breath of a divinity, which then speaks through them. In Latin, it is ingenium, which provides a neat link to the concept of genius. (And it is from genius that inspiration has often been believed to come.)
According to wikipedia, “In Ancient Rome, the genius was the guiding or “tutelary” spirit of a person.” Once again, then, there is an externality. Inspiration comes from outside, and the artist is the vessel through which the god speaks. Genius is a seperate entity, and the artist was guided by it. Another interesting etymological point, now. From wiki, once more:
“Genie is the usual English translation of the Arabic term jinni, but it is not directly an Anglicized form of the Arabic word, as is commonly thought. The English word comes from French génie, which meant a spirit of any kind, which in turn came from Latin genius, which meant a sort of tutelary or guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth. The Latin word predates the Arabic word jinni in this context, and may have been introduced in the Arabian civilization through the Nabataeans.”
Whether there’s a common root to genie and genius is in question, but it’s interesting nonetheless, and the concept of the genie is a good one to associate with the classic meaning of genius.
The common trend here is externality, and it illustrates just why the hermetic production team of Who are floundering so badly. After the equally horrendous Last of the Time Lords and Voyage of the Damned, the show’s prospects are somewhat worrying. RTD needs to get out, but that seems unlikely, so I turn to hope he’ll get breathed on, or find himself an old lamp to rub. I have some optimism that this Piers Wenger bloke (who I know nothing about) may reveal himself to be RTD’s genius, and I wish he was coming in before 2010.
Failing that, my vote’s on Tesla.
Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 3:50 am
Don’t you have an “article more-or-less formerly appearing on ‘Iconoclast of the Dawn’” tag?
I like the connections. I would actually like to press further with this, if I ever have the time. What you regard as ‘external’ I regard as ‘anonymous’ and ‘impersonal’ since for me the interior/exterior structure smacks a bit too much of psychology – but beyond this superficial difference I think we agree.
Oh, but there is so much more yet – especially as regards the wisdom of this tutelary, inspiring dæmon / daimon / δαίμων (as in Plato). It is with the help of such a genie that Talmudic legend says Solomon built his temple, and to which he owed his fabled wisdom.
In addition, it might be worth reflecting on the notion of a “genius loci”, since it was held that certain places where imbued with the breath of inspiration, wild or beautiful places where one could stop and take the air and find oneself inspired.
Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 4:14 am
Or, you know, the bathroom.