...remark is so shocking that it does full justice to his mental condition. We are reminded of Dryden's, "Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide." The madman is spontaneity personified. Even more than die cripple, he can get away with saying what...

...extremity; Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit....partitions do their bounds divide: Else, why should he, with wealth and honor blessed, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he...

...recognizes genius. SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859-1930). English author. The Valley of Fear, ch. 1 (1915). 17 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide. JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700). English poet, dramatist, critic. Absj/om and Achitophel, pi. I . 18 Genius...

...favor of theory alone. The English poet John Dryden reflected this popular viewpoint when he wrote: Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide. We may wonder if Shakespeare was speaking from experience when he wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream:...

...respect to certain personality traits, but certainly does not claim identity; it agrees with Dryden that "great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide." This puts the case very neatly; not identity, but "near alliance," with their bounds being divided...

...popular myths or poetic conceits about such a connection have a validity which is hard to challenge. "Great wits are sure to madness near allied; / and thin partitions do their bounds divide," wrote John Dryden, versifying the notion in the seventeenth century. "Study after study," reported...

...being baffled by his own evidence, and come to the conclusion that Dryden was right when he wrote: Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide. The judgement, in its curiously deliberate (self-imposed) insensitivity, does form a part of the larger...

...disdain for that rationality to which the contemporary ethos increasingly clung. Dryden's famous lines: Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide may have achieved cliche status since they were written, but their implication for Purcell's age was...

...Pope must have known someone like this when he penned those immortal lines in his Essay on Criticism: 'Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide'. Here indeed is a great wit. On health: 'Muddy' look could indicate changes in the writer's emotional...

...recognizes genius. ARTHUR CONAN, SIR DOYLE, (1859-1930) British author. The Valley of Fear, ch. 1 (1915). 6 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide. JOHN DRYDEN, (1631-1700) British poet, dramatist, critic. Absalom and Achitophel, pt. 1,1. 163^1(1681)....