THE BARD ON THE BRAIN * By P. M. Matthews and J. McQuain. * 2003. New York: Dana Press. * Price $35.00. ISBN 0-9723830-2-6

Abstract

Reviewing the structure of a book is usually unnecessary, for the title generally gives sufficient insight into the subject matter to make superfluous any description of how it has been put together. This book is an exception. It is unusual and its title, The Bard on the Brain , does not reveal what is within, for it has been conceived and constructed in a most idiosyncratic way. There are two authors. Paul Matthews is a professor of neurology and he has a special interest in brain imaging. His co-author, Jeffrey McQuain, is American and non-medical—rather, he is a scholar of Shakespeare and Chaucer. He has written books on the usage of language and has published widely on the sources of words and phrases that first appeared in Shakespeare or in early translations of the Bible. For several years he was a researcher for New York Times columnist William Safire. He has co-authored other books: one with another lexicographer (Martin Manser), one with a professor of education (Stanley Malless) and one with a film star (Efrem Zimbalist Jr). This is his first with a neurologist. The foreword is written by Diane Ackerman, an American poet and essayist. She explores Shakespeare's mind and is clearly much taken with the Bard. Her analysis has little to do with the text that follows and might read better as a postscript. It is not surprising that this pairing of neurologist and lexicographer/Shakespeare enthusiast should result in a text that is a little out of the ordinary. There are seven chapters in the book and they are headed Minds and Brains; Seeing, Smelling, Feeling; Decision and Action; Language and Numbers; Our Inner World; The Seventh Age of Man; and Drugs …