Review: Meyers, Jeffrey, “The Greek Idea of Disease, Madness, and Art”, published in the World and I, January 1999 pp. 318-324. Jeffrey Meyers has authored thirty-nine books including celebrated biographies of twentieth century literary masters Orwell, Hemmingway, and Fitzgerald. Meyers is also a Fellow of London’s prestigious Royal Society of Literature. In this article, Meyers compares man’s present-day attitudes towards disease, madness, and creativity to the ideas held by ancient Greeks. Meyers asserts that …showed first 75 words of 462 total…

…showed last 75 words of 462 total…an artist. If Meyers’ article were expanded to include all forms of creativity, not just artistic (expressionist) creativity, it would have a stronger effect and appeal to the reader. Wisdom acquired through illness could most certainly inspire an engineer the same way as it would a poet. Is society only willing to accept madness in a romanticized state? Can we look upon the achievements of an insane surgeon in the same light as a sculptor?