The apophasis of limits: genius, madness, and learning disability

Abstract

The rock struck Aeneas on the groin where the hip turns in the joint that is called the ‘cup‐bone’. The stone crushed this joint, and broke both the sinews. (Homer/Murray, c.800 BCE/1999, V, 303ff. verse 32) For health and sickness, goodness or badness, the proportion or disproportion between soul and body themselves is more important than any other. … Just as a body that is out of proportion because the legs or some other members are too big, is not only ugly, but in the working of one part with another brings countless troubles upon itself with much fatigue and frequent falls due to awkward convulsive movement, so is it, we must suppose, with the composite creature we call an animal. (Plato/Cornford, c.360 BCE/1937, 87D–E, p. 350) The maiden answered him, ‘Good sir, he is a king, you may be sure, but in a battle he was lamed, So badly wounded, he was maimed, He cannot move and must have aid, Hurt by a wound a javelin made between his thighs, the king is still in such pain, it's impossible for him to ride, but when he wishes to spend some pleasant hours, he fishes, placed in a small boat at his sign, he fishes with a hook and line, so he is called the Fisher King, since fishing is the only thing to which the hurt king can resort for recreation and for sport. (De Troyes/Cline, c.1190/1985, p. 97) He accepted the deformity which had made life so hard for him; he knew that it had warped his character, but now he saw also that by reason of it he had acquired that power of introspection which had given him so much delight. Without it he would never have had his keen appreciation of beauty, his passion for art and literature, and his interest in the varied spectacle of life. … Then he saw that the normal was the rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect, of body or of mind …. (Maugham, 1915, p. 762)