Dear Dr. Kamal:
I agree with you in principle that the line between the two may be very thin, as you suggest above! To the literature folks I say: I’m reminded here of Roderick Usher in Edgar Allan Poe’s renowned masterpiece, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” who suffers from the morbid acuteness of the senses and/or unnatural sensations, eventually to deviate from the world of common sense to that of derangement! But he still likes to read, listen to music, and talk to his friend— though he continues to do bizarre things (including burying his own twin sister alive), admitting that he is a mad man!!
Dear Marwan, I hope you and Kamal don´t mind if I take a stab at this ingenious question, but some of my favorite literary characters are both ingenious and deranged.
The one who leaps to mind first is Cervantes´s Don Quixote. The title of the work is "El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha," wherein "ingenioso" is ambivalent, signifying "clever" but also "visionary." While mad as far as chivalric romances are concerned, this monomaniac displays brilliant insight into all other affairs. One of Don Quixote´s literary children is Fyodor Dostoevsky´s "The Idiot," mad, yet wise, and beloved of his subjects. One could argue that Shakespeare´s "Hamlet" is deranged, yet wise beyond his years. His soliloquy "To be or not to be" is the classic posing of whether to accept or not one´s individual destiny. Gregor Samsa of Kafka´s "The Metamorphoses" shows ingenuity and derangement, as does the cold, cunning protagonist of Camus´s "L´Étranger." If you ever give a course on world literature, choose "Don Quixote and His Literary Children." What about madness in American literature, you ask me? What about Willy Loman, leaping hither and yon in time?
You made no error, Marwan, so you need no correction. Your theme of ingenuity is endless. How could I have forgotten James Thurber´s "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"? Would he qualify as ingenious? Truly, this is a main theme of world literature.
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