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The Greek Idea of Disease, Madness, and Art |
| Section: MODERN THOUGHT / ESSAYS |
| Author: Jeffrey Meyers |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 1/1/1999 |
| Size: 3,288 Words, 22,914 Characters |
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Greek notions of disease and art--embodied in the work of Sophocles and Plato, and given new form in Friedrich Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and Thomas Mann's Death in Venice--continue to influence modern writers. The Greeks regarded disease, as all else in their universe, with wonder. For them it was not necessarily evil, but a part of the complex relationship between humans and gods--a tool for working out our destiny, a positive connection to the divine. Essentially, the Greeks used disease and madness to explain and define the phenomenon of artistic creativity. They had two important and quite distinct ideas about it.vbcrlf First, they believed that the artist, cursed with a physical defect or mental derangement, has fallen foul of the gods...
. . .
...her Smart,vbcrlf And that sweet man, John Clare.vbcrlf The belief that suffering can give us extraordinary powers and is a necessary, even indispensable component of creativity is still basic to our culture. To a large degree our literary history traces the way artists have dealt with this paradox. vbcrlf
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