Creativity and genius are among the most mysterious aspects of human existence. Yet whereas neither can ever be understood fully, their operations can be observed closely. Any exploration of artistic creativity will bring us one step closer to comprehending how the artist invests the work of art with transcendent value. Taking that step has a dual purpose. It will show us how far removed the creative leap of imagination is from rational discourse; it will simultaneously enable us to demystify the dilemma that today's poststructuralism sees in the phenomena of creativity and genius. A current syllabus for a university course on the identity of the artist in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe states as a primary aim its intention to “challenge the myth of the Creative Genius, that creativity is the expression of personal emotional experiences, welling up from within despite any obstacles put in its path.” The syllabus then rejects this “quasi-religious formulation” in favor of concentrating on “social and institutional structures.”

By capitalizing the words “Creative Genius,” this poststructuralist syllabus suggests that the concept is in some manner inflated and that the “quasi-religious formulation” is mistaken. It is ironic that a university course on this time period would ridicule a concept so closely associated with that era. As Logan Pear sail Smith has demonstrated, our modern notions of creativity and genius were largely formulated in the second half of the eighteenth century, which saw an outpouring of treatises on the subject.