Madness and Creativity in Literature and Culture - by Corinne Saunders & Jane Macnaughton (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This collection of essays explores the relation between literature and madness from the Medieval through to the Modern period. The essays examine how literature represents the experience of madness and cultural responses to it, and how madness may inspire creativity. The volume also illuminates the history of medicine, demonstrating the shifts and continuities in clinical understandings of and social attitudes to mental illness from the Middle Ages through to the 'enlightened' notions of the Eighteenth Century to the development of psychoanalysis. The volume includes original contributions from well-known writers and specialists, such as the late Sir Roy Porter, Al Alvarez, Pat Barker, Michael O'Donnell and A. S Byatt.

About the Author

AL ALVAREZ Notable poet, critic and writer PAT BARKER Well-known author of The Regeneration Trilogy, amongst others ANTONIA BYATT Writer and literary critic; winner of the Booker Prize in 1990 ROBIN DOWNIE Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Glasgow, UK MARTYN EVANS Chair of Humanities in Medicine, University of Durham, UK DAVID FULLER Professor of English Studies, University of Durham, UK ALLAN INGRAM Professor of English and Head of the Centre for Humanities Research, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, UK MICHAEL O'DONNELL Well-known as doctor, writer and broadcaster MICHAEL O'NEILL Professor and Chairman of English Studies, University of Durham, UK ADAM PIETTE Reader in English, Glasgow University, UK ROY PORTER Former Professor in the Wellcome Trust Institute for the History of Medicine, University College London (died 2002) IGNÈS SODRÉ Author and psychoanalyst STEPHEN SYKES Professor of Theology, University of Durham and Principal of St John's College, Durham PATRICIA WAUGH Professor of English Studies, University of Durham, UK