Episode 45 - Mental Health and Shakespeare

<p>What do a bunch of 400 year old plays have to tell us about mental health? A surprising bit actually. This episode we're looking at four character - Jaques from As You Like It, Hamlet and Ophelia from Hamlet, and Lady Macbeth from Macbeth - to consider how Shakespeare handled issues of mental health, how his audience would have understood these characters' issues, and how we understand and talk about them today.</p> <p>Ancient Bickerings: </p> <p>Which of our four characters selected today would most benefit from being transported to the modern day and receiving the full suite of mental health supports available today?</p> <p>Notes:</p> <p>We referred to a number of resources to help inform us about the understanding of mental health in Elizabethan & Jacobean England, including:</p> <ul><li>John Hall's (Shakespeare's son-in-law) <a href='https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A45063.0001.001/1:7.1.29?rgn=div3;view=toc'>casebook on physical and mental ailments</a> and his (always) successful treatments</li> <li>A <a href='https://sfshakes.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/humors-madness-and-hamlet/'>quick summary of the four humours</a> and how Shakespeare would have understood them</li> <li>The <a href='https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/shakespeare-and-medicine-mental-health-tudor-times/'>Shakespeare Birth Place</a>, <a href='https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/shakespeare-and-madness'>British Library</a>, and <a href='http://theshakespeareblog.com/2012/03/shakespeares-minds-diseased-mental-illness-and-its-treatment/#:~:text=Shakespeare%20was%20clearly%20fascinated%20by,to%20the%20obsessiveness%20of%20Leontes'>the Shakespeare Blog</a> all had good resources for understanding mental health in Elizabethan times and within Shakespeare's plays</li> <li><a href='http://www.shakespeareances.com/dialogues/commentary/Mental_Illness-140708.html'>Shakespearances</a> hosts the article speaking about personal experience with mental health issues and connecting them with Shakespeare, and also re