Shakespeare on the Brain

From "The Fairy Feller" by Richard Dadd

There's a new study out that Shakespeare can actually improve your thinking by creating new pathways up there in the grey matter.

From The Economist

We decided to try to see what happens inside us when the brain comes upon sentences like "The dancers foot it with grace", or "We waited for disclose of news", or "Strong wines thick my thoughts", or "I could out-tongue your griefs" or "Fall down and knee/The way into his mercy". For research suggests that there is one specific part of the brain that processes nouns and another part that processes verbs: but what happens when for a micro-second there is a serious hesitation between whether, in context, this is noun or verb?

. . . This, then, is a chance to map something of what Shakespeare does to mind at the level of brain, to catch the flash of lightning that makes for thinking. For my guess, more broadly, remains this: that Shakespeare's syntax, its shifts and movements, can lock into the existing pathways of the brain and actually move and change them--away from old and aging mental habits and easy long-established sequences. It could be that Shakespeare's use of language gets so far into our brains that he shifts and new-creates pathways--not unlike the establishment of new biological networks using novel combinations of existing elements (genes/proteins in biology: units of phonology, semantics, syntax , and morphology in language).

You can test this hypothesis easily by getting a copy of Shakespeare's works and read for pleasure. You can find every play and poem on the internet, so enjoy!


A Midsummer Night's Dream


PUCK

How now, spirit! whither wander you?

Fairy

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:
Our queen and all our elves come here anon.