ABSTRACT
Immanuel Kant's definition of genius shows a similarly nuanced understanding of originality that is often lost in the straw-man articulations of the 'Romantic' ideology of authorship. It is traditional in works of academic scholarship for the author to formally acknowledge those who helped make the work possible or contributed to it in some way. It is commonplace, in academic writing, and Jaszi's performance here is no exception in following a fairly rigid script. By placing his target concept of 'authorship' in scare quotes, and referring to it pejoratively as 'Romantic' and 'constructed', Jaszi suggests that the belief in solitary authorship is itself a collective fiction that we mistakenly uphold as fact. Jaszi's formal recognition of those who have in some way enabled the production of his article shows that he does not regard himself as a writer whose products result from his own solitary genius.
