While the theme of epilepsy is encountered only rarely in the non-medical literature of antiquity, mediaeval times and the start of our era, over the past one and a half centuries one nevertheless comes across this topic relatively often. There it can be recognised that it is not only the frequency and drama of epileptic events that forms the reason for the disease being included into literary works, but increasingly the psychosocial effects that the disease exerts on those affected and their kin. This is no less obvious in the literary representations of epileptic children and young people – for example, the girl Nelly in Dostoyevsky’s The Humiliated and the Insulted (1861); the boy Menuchim in Joseph Roth’s Hiob (1930); Matti in the autobiographical novel of Stephan Andres The Boy in the Well (1953); Useppe in The History (1974) by Elsa Morantes; Henriette in Heinrich Böll’s The Clown (1967); the girl Bronja in André Gide’s The Counterfeiters (1925); the youth Jaime in Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Louis Rey (1927); the autistic boy Pokko in Peter Hertling’s The Windmill (1983); Battus in Christoph Ransmayr’s The Last World (1988); Simon in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) and the young Traska in Ralph Rothmann’s Milk and Coal (2002).
It is astonishing how often in this the young epileptics are characterised by their authors as figures of Light, as a principle of Good.
Many other authors (primarily from the 20th century) have woven the theme of epilepsy into their works; as exemplified by Thomas Mann (amongst others in Buddenbrooks (1901), The Magic Mountain (1924), Doctor Faustus (1947)); Franz Werfel in Hearken unto the Voice (1937); Christa Wolf (in addition to Cassandra – see above) in Medea: Voices (1996)); Arnold Stadler in My dog, My Hog My Life (1994); Tomas Bernhard in Amras (1964); Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose (1980); Janet Frame amongst others in When Owls Do Cry (1957); Connie Palmen in The Laws (1991); Pinhas Kahanowitsch in The Brothers Maschber (1939/48); Siegfried Lenz in The German Lesson (1968); Monika Maron in Animal triste (1996); Paolo Maurensig in Spiegelkanon (1996); Klaus Merz in Jacob Sleeps (1997) and in Im Schläfengebiet (1994); Robert Musil in The Man Without Qualities (1930/43); Masha Norman in Goodnight, Mother (1983); Martin Walser in The Defense of Childhood (1991); Stefan Zweig in the story Heroic Moment (1986); John Griesemer in Signal & Noise (2003).
Many other authors (primarily from the 20th century) have woven the theme of epilepsy into their works; as exemplified by Thomas Mann (amongst others in Buddenbrooks (1901), The Magic Mountain (1924), Doctor Faustus (1947)); Franz Werfel in Hearken unto the Voice (1937); Christa Wolf (in addition to Cassandra – see above) in Medea: Voices (1996)); Arnold Stadler in My dog, My Hog My Life (1994); Tomas Bernhard in Amras (1964); Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose (1980); Janet Frame amongst others in When Owls Do Cry (1957); Connie Palmen in The Laws (1991); Pinhas Kahanowitsch in The Brothers Maschber (1939/48); Siegfried Lenz in The German Lesson (1968); Monika Maron in Animal triste (1996); Paolo Maurensig in Spiegelkanon (1996); Klaus Merz in Jacob Sleeps (1997) and in Im Schläfengebiet (1994); Robert Musil in The Man Without Qualities (1930/43); Masha Norman in Goodnight, Mother (1983); Martin Walser in The Defense of Childhood (1991); Stefan Zweig in the story Heroic Moment (1986); John Griesemer in Signal & Noise (2003).
A further motive to deal with the topic of epilepsy in a literary way is found amongst authors who themselves are epileptics.
The most important representative of this group is, without doubt, F.M. Dostoyevsky, who has provided a detailed treatment of this disease in four of his great novels: The Humiliated and the Insulted (1861); The Idiot (1968); The Devils (1871); The Brothers Karamazov (1878/80). Already before that, in the 18th century, Karl Wilhelm Drais of Sauerbronn dealt with his own epilepsy in a literary manner: Stories of a Seven-Year Epilepsy (1798) – one of the first examples of the literature of personal experience, that has shown a clear increase, particularly in the last two to three decades. The male and female authors of this literary genre describe either the epilepsy of a relative (e.g. of their own child – as in Laura Doermer’s Moritz my Son or in Ursula Schuster’s Michael’s Fall) or they describe their own life with the disease (as for example in Sue Cooke’s Tousled Owls or in Hannelore Bichler’s Lightning from a Clear Sky). In the self-experience literature (that, by the way, is written almost totally by women and only very rarely by men) the motivation to write arises as a rule less frequently out of literary pretension, but more from a conscious or unconscious desire to come to terms with the illness.
The most important representative of this group is, without doubt, F.M. Dostoyevsky, who has provided a detailed treatment of this disease in four of his great novels: The Humiliated and the Insulted (1861); The Idiot (1968); The Devils (1871); The Brothers Karamazov (1878/80). Already before that, in the 18th century, Karl Wilhelm Drais of Sauerbronn dealt with his own epilepsy in a literary manner: Stories of a Seven-Year Epilepsy (1798) – one of the first examples of the literature of personal experience, that has shown a clear increase, particularly in the last two to three decades. The male and female authors of this literary genre describe either the epilepsy of a relative (e.g. of their own child – as in Laura Doermer’s Moritz my Son or in Ursula Schuster’s Michael’s Fall) or they describe their own life with the disease (as for example in Sue Cooke’s Tousled Owls or in Hannelore Bichler’s Lightning from a Clear Sky). In the self-experience literature (that, by the way, is written almost totally by women and only very rarely by men) the motivation to write arises as a rule less frequently out of literary pretension, but more from a conscious or unconscious desire to come to terms with the illness.