Episode 45 - Mental Health and Shakespeare

What do a bunch of 400 year old plays have to tell us about mental health? A surprising bit actually. This episode we're looking at four character - Jaques from As You Like It, Hamlet and Ophelia from Hamlet, and Lady Macbeth from Macbeth - to consider how Shakespeare handled issues of mental health, how his audience would have understood these characters' issues, and how we understand and talk about them today. Ancient Bickerings:  Which of our four characters selected today would most benefit from being transported to the modern day and receiving the full suite of mental health supports available today? Notes: We referred to a number of resources to help inform us about the understanding of mental health in Elizabethan & Jacobean England, including: John Hall's (Shakespeare's son-in-law) casebook on physical and mental ailments and his (always) successful treatments A quick summary of the four humours and how Shakespeare would have understood them The Shakespeare Birth Place, British Library, and the Shakespeare Blog all had good resources for understanding mental health in Elizabethan times and within Shakespeare's plays Shakespearances hosts the article speaking about personal experience with mental health issues and connecting them with Shakespeare, and also references the play Enter Ophelia, distracted