"Nature has done fairly well by us."
TOUCHED WITH FIRE: MANIC-DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS AND THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT
Kay Redfield Jamison
The jumping-off point for Dr. Jamison's study is the overlap between the symptoms of manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament and, consequently, how they inform each other. Much is made of the unusually high rate of manic-depressive illness in the artistic population (herein defined, more or less, as writers and visual artists, mainly poets and painters respectively), and while there are more than a few qualms to be had with the investigation, I came away enlightened, terrified, and satisfied all at once.
Poetry and diary excerpts are sprinkled liberally throughout. In many of them, the writers themselves allude to or describe with painful vividness their symptoms or what attends a manic or a depressive episode. Metaphor abounds. Simile strangles. Analogy elevates.
Perhaps the greatest gift this book gave me was an indirect articulation of why the idea that mental illness and creativity were intrinsically linked irked me. On some fundamental level, the notion that bipolar disorder, in its extreme as well as less extreme forms, could confer an advantage on the afflicted individual unnerved me and provoked me to anger. The implication, then, would be that the illness was a price to be paid, bargained-for consideration, for the recompense of artistic acumen. Of course, the disclaimer goes that not all artists are mentally ill and plenty of people suffer from manic depressive illness who are not endowed with creative genius. But the implication has, for a long time, been enough to raise my hackles.
Reading this book, perhaps, was my effort to plunge into the unpleasant and hope that the myth was sufficiently interrogated.
Dr. Jamison makes a compelling case through the use of collected studies as well as anecdotal/biographical evidence. However, her sample size is largely reduced to 19th century writers, and British at that. Few American writers/artists make the cut, and fewer still from the 20th century. It's possible that this was intentional in order to examine a population that had access to none of the treatment options that have existed since the 1990s or in the decades immediately prior. The consequence is that only the most extreme cases of manic depressive illness populate the book. The artistic temperament becomes a thing of thunder and fury and bitumen. While cyclothymia (what I took to mean the milder bipolar II disorder, in contrast to the more extreme bipolar I disorder) is mentioned quite a few times, no in-depth case studies are put forward examining what this disease may look like in less dynamic form. Thus, all the discussion towards the end regarding heritability and the societal implications of the genetic component wreak of the melodramatic. It seems almost trite to suggest that the Romantic poets she examines (carrying a particular affection for Byron) have infected her with accordingly theatrical thinking.
Perhaps I was looking for more points of contrast. More in-depth examination of bipolar II (or what she calls cyclothymia) or a little more than lip-service paid to the occurrence of manic depressive illness in other occupational quadrants.
It seems almost that attempts to rebut the admittedly dangerous myth that allows for suffering to be romanticized in pursuit of art are undermined by the very premise of the investigation.
Much in this book terrified me, not merely as a spectator watching the leviathan thrash, but with the thrill of recognition that attends seeing reflected in others what plagues oneself.
It is, of course, completely possible that my own reaction to this book smells ever so slightly of melodrama. Which could be entirely in keeping with this reading experience.
Kay Redfield Jamison
The jumping-off point for Dr. Jamison's study is the overlap between the symptoms of manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament and, consequently, how they inform each other. Much is made of the unusually high rate of manic-depressive illness in the artistic population (herein defined, more or less, as writers and visual artists, mainly poets and painters respectively), and while there are more than a few qualms to be had with the investigation, I came away enlightened, terrified, and satisfied all at once.
Poetry and diary excerpts are sprinkled liberally throughout. In many of them, the writers themselves allude to or describe with painful vividness their symptoms or what attends a manic or a depressive episode. Metaphor abounds. Simile strangles. Analogy elevates.
Perhaps the greatest gift this book gave me was an indirect articulation of why the idea that mental illness and creativity were intrinsically linked irked me. On some fundamental level, the notion that bipolar disorder, in its extreme as well as less extreme forms, could confer an advantage on the afflicted individual unnerved me and provoked me to anger. The implication, then, would be that the illness was a price to be paid, bargained-for consideration, for the recompense of artistic acumen. Of course, the disclaimer goes that not all artists are mentally ill and plenty of people suffer from manic depressive illness who are not endowed with creative genius. But the implication has, for a long time, been enough to raise my hackles.
Reading this book, perhaps, was my effort to plunge into the unpleasant and hope that the myth was sufficiently interrogated.
Dr. Jamison makes a compelling case through the use of collected studies as well as anecdotal/biographical evidence. However, her sample size is largely reduced to 19th century writers, and British at that. Few American writers/artists make the cut, and fewer still from the 20th century. It's possible that this was intentional in order to examine a population that had access to none of the treatment options that have existed since the 1990s or in the decades immediately prior. The consequence is that only the most extreme cases of manic depressive illness populate the book. The artistic temperament becomes a thing of thunder and fury and bitumen. While cyclothymia (what I took to mean the milder bipolar II disorder, in contrast to the more extreme bipolar I disorder) is mentioned quite a few times, no in-depth case studies are put forward examining what this disease may look like in less dynamic form. Thus, all the discussion towards the end regarding heritability and the societal implications of the genetic component wreak of the melodramatic. It seems almost trite to suggest that the Romantic poets she examines (carrying a particular affection for Byron) have infected her with accordingly theatrical thinking.
Perhaps I was looking for more points of contrast. More in-depth examination of bipolar II (or what she calls cyclothymia) or a little more than lip-service paid to the occurrence of manic depressive illness in other occupational quadrants.
It seems almost that attempts to rebut the admittedly dangerous myth that allows for suffering to be romanticized in pursuit of art are undermined by the very premise of the investigation.
Much in this book terrified me, not merely as a spectator watching the leviathan thrash, but with the thrill of recognition that attends seeing reflected in others what plagues oneself.
It is, of course, completely possible that my own reaction to this book smells ever so slightly of melodrama. Which could be entirely in keeping with this reading experience.