Balzac's Unknown Masterpiece: spotting the next big thing in art and science.

Abstract

There is no shortage of advice on how to become a creative writer, a creative artist or a creative scientist. Just in the last decade, hundreds of books and articles have been written on the subject, and in hundreds of TED lectures, inspired thinkers reveal their secrets for creative success. Despite this flood of contemporary advice, my favorite insight on creativity goes back over 100 years to the Irish playwright and wit Oscar Wilde, who famously proclaimed that “a writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave”—an assertion that can be applied to most creative individuals. One of the virtues of a misbehaving mind is its ability to spot the next big thing— whether it be in art or in science. A great example of a famous literary figure who passed the Oscar Wilde ‘misbehavior test’ with flying colors is the nineteenth-century novelist Honore de Balzac. In the 1830s, Balzac conceived the idea of writing a series of works that would describe the sweep and panorama of French society in all its splendor and squalor, from the highest aristocrats and politicians to the lowest swindlers and prostitutes. Over a 16-year period, he published a total of 91 novels and short stories, and shortly before his death in 1850 he organized his 91 works into a multivolume collection that he titled The Human Comedy. Balzac chose this title to contrast it with Dante’s The Divine Comedy, which portrayed Hell, Purgatory and Heaven and had nothing to say about the realism of the earthly life that Balzac presented. The Human Comedy contained many astute insights into human behavior. One of the most original and popular—and a prime example of his misbehavior—was his discussion about how certain people get ahead in life through advantageous marriages rather than hard work.