ENG 255 B MENTAL ILLNESS IN LITERATURE

Does creativity arise from emotional instability? How has the treatment of mental illness at times hindered artistic vision? Can an emotionally ill person ever fully describe what they are experiencing? Are emotional illnesses stereotyped or portrayed accurately in contemporary literature? Through reading literature by and about the mentally ill (poetry by Christopher Smart, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton; drama such as The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-PaulMarat as Performed by the Inmates ofthe Asylum of Charenton UndertheDirection ofthe Marquis de Sade and Equus; and fiction that explores depression, schizophrenia, and post-partum depression), we will address these questions and many more.