The anguished and volatile intensity associated with the artistic temperament was once thought to be a symptom of genius or eccentricity peculiar to artists, writers and musicians. Kay Jamison's work, based on her study as a clinical psychologist and researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists subject to exalted highs and despairing lows were in fact engaged in a struggle with clinically identifiable manic-depressive illness. Jamison presents proof of the biological foundations of this disease and applies what is known about the illness to the lives and works of some of the world's greatest artists including Byron, Van Gogh, Schumann and Woolf.

Reviews

The author succeeds nicely in her effort ``to make a literary, biographical, and scientific argument for a compelling association . . . between two temperaments--the artistic and the manic-depressive--and their relationship to the rhythms of the natural world.'' Jamison (psychiatry, Johns Hopkins Univ.) examines the lives of writers and artists afflicted with manic-depression, discussing at length the case of Lord Byron. In language comprehensible to the lay reader, she presents a thorough overview of current knowledge concerning the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of this disorder, a topic also addressed, though in a less scientifically rigorous fashion, in D.J. Hershman and Julian Lieb's The Key to Genius (Prometheus Bks, 1988). The current work is recommended for all academic libraries; it will earn its keep in large and medium-sized public libraries as well.-- Mary Ann Hughes, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman