The Bard on the Brain

Paul M Matthews and Jeffrey McQuain

University of Chicago Press, 2003,
£24.50
192 pages
ISBN 0 972 38302 6
Rating:**

One of the most important legacies of the Enlightenment-the revolution in thinking in 18th century Europe-was the division between science and the arts. The Bard on the Brain is one of many books that seek to bridge this gap with the arts, making new discoveries accessible to the lay reader. Neuroscientist Paul Matthews and author Jeffrey McQuain bring together the art of Shakespeare and the science of brain imaging. Modern techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography provide us with a window on the workings of the brain. More than 400 years ago, Shakespeare was writing with amazing insight into the human mind; his characters experience the extremes of emotion and he tackled conditions we still face today such as dementia (King Lear) and epilepsy (Julius Caesar). The authors explore the parallels they perceive between Shakespeare's writings and neuroscience today.

Matthews and McQuain take a broad sweep of the brain: they look not only at neurological disease but also at motor function, memory, our senses, and emotions. The chapters on words and music-for example how the brain processes language-are particularly interesting. Shakespeare's plays are full of music and his writing is perhaps the best in the English language. However, it seems that the authors have to resort to more tenuous links to make a lot of their points, and they tend to try to assign physical pathology to everything. Although the authors claim that Shakespeare "marches ... confidently along the very frontiers of 21st century science" in his exploration of mental and physical illness, he was much more concerned with the basic human condition-more psychology than neurology.

For example, in Henry IV Part 1, the king's son Hal changes from an irresponsible young man to a wise king. Matthews and McQuain use this to intoduce a chapter on how character can be changed by brain damage, citing the example of Phineas Gage, who had a metal rod driven through his orbitofrontal and prefrontal cortices. Hal's metamorphosis was nowhere near as dramatic and may well just have been the normal consequence of growing up.

For a coffee table book, The Bard on the Brain is well referenced. It is beautifully illustrated with examples of the appropriate images and photographs of performances of the plays. Having spent painful lessons at school trying to get to grips with Shakespeare, many of you are probably recoiling in horror at the thought of a book that combines his plays with neuroscience. But, putting literature aside, this is a great overview of brain imaging, written in a way that would be accessible to a lay person, yet also provides enough information for interested medics