PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LITERARY GENIUS

Literary genius is a multi-layered aptitude that consists of many uniq ue cognitive, affective, perceptual, motivational, interpersonal, and state-dependent attributes, including the challenging of orthodox thin king, fertility of ideas, compulsive discipline and hard work, toleran ce of ambiguity, innocence of perception, immersion in the present mom ent, intellectual diversity an internal locus of evaluation, and sensi tivity to nuances. The primary role of the creative genius in society is to hasten the development of authentic human values, which often re quires these men and women to partially or completely withdraw from ma instream society. The extreme individualism of these people allows the m to discover human values that are then used to revivify eroding or p rocrustean social structures. Creative writers provide the covert foun dation for social change and spiritual transformation, which requires that they remain loners who are totally dedicated to their creative wo rk.