NeuroEd Enrichment Materials: Literary Offerings
A Celebration of Alcohol
By Paul M. Matthews and Jeffrey McQuain in The Bard on the Brain (2003)
In various plays, Shakespeare both censures and celebrates the effects of alcohol on the human brain and body. For its celebration, he speaks through Falstaff, one of his most memorable characters, and a man resolutely committed to drinking.
Madness in Good Company: Great Literary Portrayals of Brain Disorders
By Marcia Clendenen and Dick Riley in Cerebrum, Vol 2:3, 2000
A baker's dozen of the most compelling novels and short stories of the past 200 years takes us deep inside disordered minds. Whether writing from personal experience, as did Sylvia Plath and F. Scott Fitzgerald, or solely from their creative imaginations, as did Charles Dickens and Anne Tyler, powerful fiction writers show us the horror, and sometimes even the humor, of disease from addiction to narcolepsy.
The Blackness of Depression
By Paul M. Matthews and Jeffrey McQuain in The Bard on the Brain (2003)
Richard II portrays a monarch more in control of his language than his country. Forlorn, Richard delivers a stirring eulogy for dead kings, whose greatness is so ephemeral that it can be undone by seemingly little more than the prick of a "little pin." There are few instances in Shakespeare's plays in which a character displays the blackness of depression more clearly than does Richard in this scene.
The Great Brain Books
By in Cerebrum, Vol 1:1, 1999
Here is a selection of the great brain books for lay readers. The recommendations of three dozen of the nation's leading neuroscientists, reviewed here by the editors of Cerebrum, cover everything from emotions and cognition to diseases and disorders. These take their place among historical classics, personal memoirs, and perspectives from other fields.
The Promise of Treatment
By Paul M. Matthews and Jeffrey McQuain in The Bard on the Brain (2003)
In Macbeth, the doctor reports on the worsening condition of Lady Macbeth to her distraught husband. Macbeth asks the doctor if medicine (an "antidote") might be given or whether sorrow cannot be somehow physically removed from human memory. The doctor notes that effective treatment of a mental illness usually demands not only medical skill but also the active participation of the patient, who must "minister to himself."
Tracing Shakespeare's Insights Through Modern Brain Science
By Paul M. Matthews and Jeffrey McQuain in The Dana Sourcebook of Brain Science, 3rd edition (2003)
An introduction to the text "The Bard on the Brain" by P. Matthews, MD and J. McQuain, PhD.
Treating Depression
By Paul M. Matthews and Jeffrey McQuain in The Bard on the Brain (2003)
Hamlet's "to be, or not to be" soliloquy is considered by many the greatest dramatic speech ever written in English. Deeply depressed by the death of his father and the subsequent marriage of his mother to a man he despises, Hamlet grapples with the question of whether or not to continue living. However, unlike Ophelia--who eventually succumbs to depression (and probably takes her own life)--Hamlet is able to transform his mood from despondency into anger and action.