It is often enough observed how mysterious is the phenomenon of genius, even if we no longer think the word denotes a creature who sits on poets’ shoulders and whispers messages from the Muses into their ears. It is one thing to accept that some people can be stunningly inventive and clever, another to fathom the nature of the gifts that make them so. But in the case of Shakespeare, familiarly, all resources fail: here was an individual whose capacities and achievement literally transcend explanation.

Literary Review

Apr 2007

Categories

A C Grayling

The Shadows Lengthen

Naked at a Party

All You Need To Know

Objectively Speaking

Brain Matters

Evolutionary Minds

Apocalypse Now

A Man Of Gravity

Missives from the Monastry

Man and Beast

A Stitch In Time

Atomic Angst

To Think for Oneself

The Progress of Pulchritude

A Theory to Believe In

Herbert’s Law

In Two Minds

Crisis? What Crisis?

Touching the Third Rail

Simply Hideous

Locke’s Laundry

The Country of the Word

Crossroads in Cairo

I, Anti-Realist