Stirling University Presents

Biography

 

Lorna Murchison is currently a postgraduate student at the University of Stirling, studying towards an MLitt in The Gothic Imagination. She also holds an Honours degree in English Studies from the University of Strathclyde. At present she is the One in Five ambassador for the Scottish Green Party and plans to integrate her literature research with campaigns designed to reduce the stigma of mental health problems. 

 

 

Presentation Title: Bipolar Disorder and its Fundamental Influence on Gothic Literature

Topic Info: Professor of Psychiatry, Kay Redfield Jamison's research suggests that Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf all suffered from bipolar disorder. Journalist Brian Adams speculates that Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë suffered from the same illness, as did psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. The presentation will examine evidence of the symptoms in both the writers' letters and their texts, while giving a general overview of bipolar disorder. Lastly, it will argue for the inclusion of Matthew Lewis, via original research.