PTSD from Shakespeare's time and before

[rachelmanija]

I'm writing a paper on PTSD and combat-related berserk states as depicted in pre-1650 sources and comparing it to the current understanding of both. Ideally, I will be able to reference substance/alcohol use and abuse in relation to this.

Can you recommend me some sources to check out? I am definitely going to be using Shakespeare's Henry V, Part I. I have already thought of Macbeth (possible PTSD), and The Iliad and The Mahabharata (berserk states). Nonfiction is also fine.

NOTE: No Civil War memoirs! I'm trying to find sources from before PTSD was really conceptualized as such, and it had been conceptualized as "soldier's heart" by then.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Interesting! I know who she is but haven't ever read her book. So you think maybe PTSD? I have heard temporal lobe seizures and migraines with aura.

[staranise]

Why did I write "transit"? I meant "combat". Anyway, she had a really bad childbirth and then went into a psychotic state and was chained in a storeroom for six months until Jesus appeared to her in a vision. I've read arguments (in 2005, online, somewhere) that this qualifies as a trauma narrative.

[rachelmanija]

Wow! I don't know if that will work for this particular paper, but I should read it just because.

[kore]

You should totally read Margery anyway (in your COPIOUS spare time, haha) because IIRC she wrote one of the first autobiographical memoirs, esp one of the first by a woman (take that, Augustine) and she's just kind of totally badass and independent. Scholars used to think she was "mad," apparently, haha.

[thistleingrey]

She is, except for the part where she's dependent upon the person writing down her narrative and couldn't check whether he'd written it accurately. Anyway, yes, Rachel should read it sometime :)

[kore]

MARGERY KEMPE <3333