“[T]he promise of a pill for every ill remains, as it always will, unfulfilled. Anyone who had read his Shakespeare would not have been surprised by this disappointment. When Macbeth asks a physician:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

“The physician replies laconically: ‘Therein the patient / Must minister to himself.’

“Every day, several patients ask me Macbeth’s question with regard to themselves-in less elevated language, to be sure-and they expect a positive answer: but four centuries before neurochemistry was even thought of, and before any of the touted advances in neurosciences that allegedly gave us a new and better understanding of ourselves, Shakespeare knew something that we are increasingly loath to acknowledge. There is no technical fix for the problems of humanity.” Theodore DalrympleWhy Shakespeare is for All TimeCity Journal)

Share
Published by
Dennis G. Jerz

Recent Posts

Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.

Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.

17 hours ago

The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.

The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.

1 day ago

How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham’s “Disagreement Hierarchy” to organize a college term paper.

How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham's "Disagreement Hierarchy" to organize a college term paper.

1 day ago

A.I. ‘Completes’ Keith Haring’s Intentionally Unfinished Painting

After learning of his AIDS diagnosis, artist Keith Haring created the work, "Unfinished Painting" (1989),…

2 days ago

Seton Hill students Emily Vohs, Elizabeth Burns, Jake Carnahan-Curcio and Carolyn Jerz in a scene from “Dead Man’s Cell Phone.”

Seton Hill students Emily Vohs, Elizabeth Burns, Jake Carnahan-Curcio and Carolyn Jerz in a scene…

2 days ago

“The Cowherd Who Became a Poet,” by James Baldwin. (Read by Dennis Jerz)

Inspiration can come to those with the humblest heart. Caedmon the Cowherd believed he had…

2 days ago