Those who claim that Shakespeare did not write his plays often argue that only some wealthy, privileged, and highly educated person would have been capable of writing them. The premise of this argument is fundamentally mistaken. Literary genius more often arises from disappointment and chagrin than comfort and complacency; the rich and content have no need of imagination.
The Duke of Wellington is supposed to have remarked that no man is a hero to his valet. No doubt there’s some truth to that – familiarity, especially regarding a person’s phobias, thoughtlessness, and hemorrhoids, has to take the shine off their glamor, however eminent they might be. Nevertheless, there’s another way to look at it.
Years ago, I read a book called Napoleon’s Glands, by Arno Karlen (unfortunately out of print now). I found it fascinating, and learning about famous people’s physical frailties did not generally lower my opinion of them (even if, as in the case of Napoleon, I disliked them from the onset). I had a similar experience with John J. Ross’s Shakespeare’s Tremor and Orwell’s Cough, which applies very much the same analysis to great English-language authors.
The book deals with William Shakespeare, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, The Brontë sisters, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, William Butler Yeats, Jack London, and George Orwell. We learn that Shakespeare might have contracted syphilis (which was endemic in England in his time), though it’s not certain, and the author describes the harrowing medical treatment (surprisingly not worthless) he might have undergone for it. More solidly, the Bard’s deteriorating handwriting indicates essential tremor, a common malady in aging people (we have it in my own family).
Milton suffered detached retinas; Jonathan Swift probably had Ménière’s Disease and certainly died of dementia. Tuberculosis, probably contracted in a horrific private school, plagued the Brontës. Nathaniel Hawthorne may have had Asperger’s Syndrome, and probably died of stomach cancer. Melville looks like Bipolar Disorder. Yeats seems to have suffered from brucellosis; Jack London had scurvy and yaws, and probably died of an accidental drug overdose. James Joyce looks like a case of reactive arthritis, a condition related to venereal disease, and suffered greatly from deteriorating eyesight. Orwell was (probably) another victim of tuberculosis, aggravated by bad lifestyle choices.
Shakespeare’s Tremor and Orwell’s Cough may be an unpleasant read for sensitive readers (I myself grew up on a farm and am son and brother to nurses, so my threshold of nausea is pretty high). But I found the book absolutely riveting. And rather than inspiring contempt for these remarkable artists, my admiration for their achievement, in the face of such suffering, only rose.
The book did make me wonder, though, whether my lack of literary success might be due to insufficient craziness in my makeup.
