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‘Neglected Genius’: The Romantic Canon

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Thomas Chatterton and Neglected Genius, 1760–1830

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Abstract

‘I weep’, writes Coleridge in his monody for Chatterton, ‘that heaven-born Genius so should fall’.3 The phrasing is slippery. Does Coleridge mean to suggest that the fall of genius is, even over a differing period of time, inevitable? Or does he wish to imply that Chatterton’s case entailed the most emphatic collapse of all? Is genius salvageable, redeemable, or is it by nature doomed to fail? Clearly Coleridge’s categorization of ‘heaven-born Genius’ recalls Edward Young’s assertion that virtue must attend ingenium. Was that the biggest sin of hubristic genius: a rejection of its own divinity?

No marble now proclaims to Fame Thy Chattertons neglected name. (Robert Southey)1

Ye gen’rous minds, if sure there are, Who make neglected worth your case, Where dwelt you when he gazed around, And not one gleam of comfort found? (Edward Rushton)2

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Notes

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  1. University of Dundee, UK

    Daniel Cook (Lecturer in English)

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© 2013 Daniel Cook

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Cook, D. (2013). ‘Neglected Genius’: The Romantic Canon. In: Thomas Chatterton and Neglected Genius, 1760–1830. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137332493_7

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