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“What Ceremony of Words Can Patch the Havoc?”: Composition and Madness

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Affective Disorder and the Writing Life: The Melancholic Muse

Abstract

In a 15-year longitudinal study little known outside of psychiatry, fully 80 per cent of a writers’ group at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop reported living with, or experiencing an incidence of, an affective disorder — as opposed to 30 per cent of non-writer controls. Springing from this study, this survey breaks ground by examining the persistent linkage of affective disorders (depression and bipolar disorder) and writing creativity, from the Phaedrus to today’s stunning PET and SPECT scans of depressed, manic, and non-affectively disordered brains. The essay also calls for new research alliances between composition studies and neuroscience — research into states such as writer’s block, hypergraphia, and the exuberant pressured speech of mania. The year 2013 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s suicide; her work provides fertile ground for this exploration of affective madness and invention.

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Authors
  1. Stephanie Stone Horton
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia State University, USA

    Stephanie Stone Horton (Teaching Assistant) (Teaching Assistant)

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© 2014 Stephanie Stone Horton

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Horton, S.S. (2014). “What Ceremony of Words Can Patch the Havoc?”: Composition and Madness. In: Horton, S.S. (eds) Affective Disorder and the Writing Life: The Melancholic Muse. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137381668_1

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