Madness and Creativity in Literature and Culture

Corinne Saunders is Reader in the Department of English Studies at the University of Durham, UK. She specializes in medieval literature, in particular romance, and in history of ideas. Her books include The Forest of Medieval Romance (1993), Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England (2001) and a Blackwell Companion to Chaucer. Jane Macnaughton is a general practitioner and Director of the Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine at the University of Durham, UK. She teaches personal and professional development to undergraduate medical students, and co-authored the book, Clinical Judgement (2000). She has also published papers on medical education, medical humanities, history of medicine and arts in health.

• Introduction: C.Saunders &J.Macnaughton PART ONE: READING MADNESS: LITERATURE IN MEDICINE Madness and Creativity: Communication and Excommunication; R.Porter Doctors as Performance Artists; M.O'Donnell Ambiguity in Attitudes to Madness and Creativity; R.Downie PART TWO: MADNESS IN LITERATURE; MEDIEVAL TO MODERN 'The thoughtful maladie': Madness and Vision in Medieval Writing; C.Saunders 'Inexpressibly Dreadful': Depression, Confession and Language in 18th Century Britain; A.Ingram Wonders in the Deep: Cowper, Melancholy and Religion; S.Sykes 'Mad as a refuge from unbelief': William Blake and the Sanity of Dissidence; D.Fuller 'Why then Ile Fit You': Poetry and Madness from Wordsworth to Berryman; M.O'Neill Madness, Medicine and Creativity in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain ; M.Evans PART THREE: WRITING MADNESS: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERATURE Creative Writers and Psychopathology: The Cultural Consolations of 'The Wound and the Bow' Thesis: P.Waugh The Myth of the Artist: A.Alvarez On Writing Madness (Dialogue); A.Byatt & I.Sodré Breaking Down or Breaking Out? (Dialogue); P.Barker & A.Piette Index