Public domain classics and other books as mental-health boosters?

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By David Rothman

Could books, E included, be good for your mental health—at least if presented in the right context?

A Boston psychiatrist has just won a MacArthur genius grant for using parallels from the Iliad and the Odyssey to help returned veterans cope with combat-created traumas.

No, I’m not saying that shrinks should take over the teaching of English, but this is another example of how Literature can help cope with Life, especially if it’s presented in a way relevant to readers. Consider Romeo and Juliet. (Ford Madox Brown balcony scene reproduced here). Taught properly, could it help in neighbors riven by racial and ethnic tensions?

Meanwhile here are a few more details from the Boston Globe story on the shrink and the vets:

“When Boston psychiatrist Jonathan Shay wanted to understand the psychological toll of the Vietnam War on the veterans he treated, he turned to the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey.’ The classical Greek epics perfectly encapsulate the mental damage of combat, said Shay, who works for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Boston.

“He wrote two books that draw on the similarities between the Vietnam-era trauma of his patients and the stress of combat that Homer portrayed in poems that may be as old as 2,800 years.”

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