Spirits, Vitality, and Creation in the Poetics of Tommaso Campanella and John Donne

Authors

Anthony P. Russell, University of RichmondFollow

Abstract

In discussions over the meaning of "genius" in the Renaissance, there is at the very least agreement that the term was associated with heightened powers of perception and creativity. Whether defined in terms of Neoplatonic notions of inspiration, Aristotelian/Galenic theories of the humors (and of melancholy in particular), or rhetorical theories of invention, ingegno is acknowledged as having denoted an unusual mental energy and flexibility which facilitated the creative process. It is the psychic mobility with which ingegno was consistently linked that I intend to emphasize here, and in particular its frequent identification with those volatile spirits that were centrally important in both Aristotelian/Galenic humoral psychology and in the Neoplatonic and hermetic traditions of natural magic. In this respect I am less interested in the early-modem "debate" over the origins of genius between Aristotelian naturalism and Neoplatonic supernaturalism than I am in the continuities between these two very often intersecting traditions.

Document Type

Book Chapter

ISBN

9781138382770

Publication Date

2012

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2012, Ashgate Press. The Invention of Discovery, 1500-1700.

Please note that downloads of the book chapter are for private/personal use only.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in The Invention of Discovery, 1500-1700 on 2012. available online: http://www.routledge.com.

Russell, Anthony. “Spirits, Vitality, and Creation in the Poetics of Tommaso Campanella and John Donne,” in The Invention of Discovery, 1500-1700, ed. James Dougal Fleming, (Surrey, UK: Ashgate Press, 2012): 79-92.

Recommended Citation

Russell, Anthony. “Spirits, Vitality, and Creation in the Poetics of Tommaso Campanella and John Donne,” in The Invention of Discovery, 1500-1700, ed. James Dougal Fleming, (Surrey, UK: Ashgate Press, 2012): 79-92.