In Their Right Minds

Starting from the proposition in 1976 by Julian Jaynes that the language of poetry originated in the right hemisphere, this extensive scientific and literary text confirms the role of the right hemisphere in poetry, sensed presence, inner voices, paranormal claims and also in dissociation and mental imbalance. Enhanced right hemispheres may result from a number of factors or experiences – often childhood trauma and the death of a parent - and may create hypersensitivities as well as special skills, as the author demonstrates with respect to a large number of distinguished poets, including Blake, Keats, Hugo, Rilke, Yeats, Merrill, Plath and Hughes. Other writers include Balzac, Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Dickens, Stevenson and Maupassant. The author also discusses the work of FWH Myers, Brian Weiss and Stan Grof. The scholarship displayed is prodigious and the insights gained at the interface between neuroscience and literature make fascinating reading.