A Dull Boy: Stupidity and Affect

Abstract

Given the Romantic-era fascination with the figure of the idiot—as evidenced, for instance, in Wordsworth’s lyrical ballad “The Idiot Boy” (1798), and, in fashion, the “idiot sleeve,” ostensibly so named for being designed after the straightjacket used in madhouses at the time—it is perhaps not entirely surprising to find in that period and the next a number of defenses of stupidity of one kind or another. Though a concept of stupidity had been around for a long time—from the Latin stupidus or stupēre, to be stupid meant to be stunned or benumbed, as in struck dumb by surprise or grief—the term was before the nineteenth century rarely in use. Although Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad, whose four volumes were published between 1728- 1743, seems obviously to be about what we might now class as stupidity—we hear in the poem of dunces, ignorance, buffoonery, “Folly and “Dulness” (both personified), nonsense and absurdity, “Maggots” (essentially, bad ideas), “Emptiness,” coxcombs, asses, and jades, “monkey-mimics,” “a brain of feathers,” and—the most closely related terms—“stupefaction” and “stupefied” (one figure is “stupefied to stone”)—stupidity is mentioned by name only in footnotes, twice referring to critics, and once, more significantly, where it is a lesser evil as compared to Dulness. Here are the lines in the poem to which the note in question refers. The note reads: “Dulness here is not to be taken contractedly for mere stupidity, but in the enlarged sense of the word, for all slowness of apprehension, shortness of sight, or imperfect sense of things. It includes . . . labour, industry, and some degree of activity and boldness – a ruling principle not inert, but turning topsy-turvy the understanding, and inducing an anarchy or confused state of mind” (note 7 Book 1). Here “dulness” is an active force, industriously affecting body and mind, while stupidity is, by comparison, “inert”: less thoroughgoing and vigorous.