{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/genius",
 "title": "Genius",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "What is the thing called Genius? One has said",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis general ability directed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Into a special channel. One, instead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Proffers a definition much respected",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By toiling dullards: genius, he explains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is infinite capacity for taking pains.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Max Nordau, seeing he has not the thing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has solemnly decided, with Lombroso,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That genius is degeneracy. Ring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The curtain down⁠—the show is only so-so;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d rather see a dog-fight than sit out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This inconclusive definition-bout.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What, then, is genius? Faith, I’m only sure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I am deep in doubt about the matter;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But this I think: of two in literature",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is the greater genius who’s the fatter.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas in an age less prosperous that those",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were kings of thought who starved by verse and prose.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lo! the lean rhapsodist whose soul surveys,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ecstatic, his unprofitable vision,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Interprets it in cleanly speech; arrays",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His jeweled words with scholarly precision!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Faith, he’s a dunce or he would never lack",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The means to wedge his belly from his back.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twere passing easy to allay his pang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had he the genius⁠—that’s to say, the insight",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Commercial. If he would but sing in slang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He’d earn the wherewithal to make his skin tight.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Genius (let’s now define the word afresh)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the capacity to take on flesh.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Spirit of Letters, hail! Thy reign is Now;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy ministers are gentlemen that waddle⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Children of light and leading who avow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They swap, for tallow, speech that’s not a model⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For laminated kidney-suet trade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unsavory words. You must be stout, George Ade.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}