9 mentally ill writers, who gave the world the great ideas

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), American writer and poet. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms
The history of the disease Significantly worsened the state of mind of a serious illness According to his young wife (his cousin Virginia, he married thirteen, after seven years of marriage, in 1842, she fell ill with tuberculosis, five years later died). After the death of Virginia - for the remaining two years of his own life - Edgar Allan Poe in love several times and took two attempts to get married. The first failed because of the refusal of the chosen one, it frightened the next breakdown, the second - because of the absence of the groom: shortly before the wedding at heavily drunk and fell into a deranged state.
He was found in a cheap tavern Baltimore five days later. The writer was placed in a hospital, where he died after five days of terrible suffering from hallucinations. One of the biggest nightmares at - death alone - has come true: a lot with what he took to be a promise to him in the last hour, but the three in the morning on Oct. 7, 1849 none of the family was not close. Before his death By desperate summons Jeremy Reynolds, a researcher of the North Pole.

The ideas presented to the world. Two popular modern literary genre. The first - the novel (or story) horror. Great influence on Poe had Hoffmann, however Hoffman gloomy romanticism In the first thickened to the consistency of a true nightmare - a viscous, highly sophisticated and hopeless ("Tell-Tale Heart," "Fall of the House of Usher"). Second genre - detective. That Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mystery of Marie Roget"), became the ancestor of the emergence of the deductive method and its apologist for Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

The patient №2.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms The medical records of Nietzsche, in particular, stated that the patient drank from his boot your urine emitted inarticulate cries, took the hospital guard for Bismarck, tried to barricade the door shards of broken glass, slept on the floor beside the bed, jumping on a goat, made a face and stuck out left shoulder.

The history of the disease
The ideas presented to the world. The idea of ​​superman (paradoxically, it is this jumping on a goat, and stick out his left shoulder fellow we associate with a free, nadmoralnoy, perfect, existing beyond good and evil person). The idea of ​​the new morality (morality masters in return morality of slaves): healthy morality should celebrate and strengthen the natural human desire for power. Every other painful and moral decadence. The ideology of fascism: the sick and the weak must die, strong - to win ("Falling shove!"). The assumption "God is dead».

The patient №3.

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961), American writer. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms
The history of the disease What's the point was to destroy my brain and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and throw me on the side of life? It was a brilliant cure, only patient they lost. " Upon leaving the clinic Hemingway was convinced that he still can not write, and made the first attempt of suicide, but relatives were able to stop him. At the request of his wife, he took a second course of treatment, but has not changed its intentions. A few days after discharge, he shot himself in the head of your favorite shotgun, charging the pre-both barrels.

The ideas presented to the world. The idea of ​​the "lost generation". Hemingway, like his fellow era Remarque had in mind a particular generation, millstones to grind a particular war, however, the term has appeared a bit too tempting and convenient - since each generation finds a reason to consider themselves lost. New literary device "method of the iceberg" when the mean, compressed text implies generous, heart-rending subtext. "Machismo" new model, embodied in the works, and in life.
Hemingway's hero - a stern and taciturn fighter who understands that fighting is useless, but fights to the end. The most uncompromising macho Hemingway was perhaps the fisherman Santiago ("The Old Man and the Sea"), in which the mouth of the Great Ham put the phrase: "Man is not created in order to take a beating. A man can be destroyed but not defeated ».
Hemingway himself - a hunter, a soldier, an athlete, sailor, angler, explorer and Nobel laureate, whose body is completely covered with scars - to the great dismay of many, fight to the end did not. However, his ideals writer has not changed. "The man has no right to die in bed, - he used to say. - Either in battle or a bullet in the forehead ».

The patient №4.

Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924), Czech writer. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms
The history of the disease When his father insisted that after serving the son was still working in his shop, but not engaged in nonsense, Franz decided to commit suicide and wrote a farewell letter to his friend Max Brod "At the last moment I managed intervening quite unceremoniously, to protect him from" loving parents "- Max Brod wrote in his book about Kafka. His mental condition marked periods of deep calm and smooth, are replaced by the same long periods of the disease state.
Here are lines from his "Diaries" clearly reflect this inner struggle: "I can not sleep. Only the vision of no sleep. Strange instability of all my inner being. The monstrous world that I carry in my head. How do I get rid of him and to release him without destroying? ».

Writer died at age 41 of tuberculosis. Three months later, he was in agony: destroy not only the body but also the mind.

The ideas presented to the world. Kafka was not known during his lifetime, published little, but after his death the writer's work captivated readers a new trend in literature. Kafkaesque world of despair, horror and despair grew out of his personal drama of creation and became the basis of a new aesthetic directions "literature with a diagnosis of" very typical of the XX century, has lost God, and received in return the absurdity of existence.

The patient №5.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Irish writer. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms
The ideas presented to the world. A new form of political satire. "Gulliver's Travels" is certainly not the first glance sarcastic enlightened intellectuals to the surrounding reality, but innovation is not in sight, and in optics. While other scoffers looked at life through a magnifying glass or a telescope, the dean of the Cathedral of St. Patrick fashioned for this lens with fancy curved glass. Later this lens with pleasure enjoyed Nikolai Gogol and Saltykov-Shchedrin.

The patient №6.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), French writer and philosopher. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms
The history of the disease
The ideas presented to the world. Educational reform. The modern child-rearing allowance on many items repeated "Emile": instead of the repressive methods of education Rousseau proposed method of encouragement and affection; he believed that the child should be free from mechanical zatverzhivaniya dry facts, and explain everything in the living examples, and only when the child will be mentally ready to accept the new information; Rousseau believed the task of pedagogy inherent nature of the development of talent, not a correction of the individual. A new type of literary character and new literary trends.
Rousseau starry-generated fantasy creature - tearful "savage" guided not by reason, but the feeling (but a moral sense), - continue to develop, grow, and the oldest in the framework of sentimentalism and romanticism. The idea of ​​a democratic state, stems directly from the work "The Social Contract". The idea of ​​revolution (this works of Rousseau inspired fighters for the ideals of the French Revolution, Rousseau himself, paradoxically, was never a supporter of such radical measures).

The patient №7.

Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852), Russian writer. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms
The history of the disease On the night of 11 of February 12, a writer burnt his manuscript (the next morning he explained this act machinations of the evil), then his condition steadily deteriorated. Treatment (not too much, however, the professional: a leech in his nostrils, wrapping sheets and cold dipping their heads in ice water), positive results were achieved. February 21, 1852 the writer had died. The true cause of his death remained unclear. Yet, most likely, simply Gogol himself into a complete nervous and physical exhaustion - it is possible that the timely help of a psychiatrist could have saved his life.

The ideas presented to the world. A particular love for the little man (layman), consisting of half-disgusted, half of pity. A whole bunch of amazing accuracy found Russian types. Gogol has developed several role models (the brightest - the characters of "Dead Souls"), which is quite relevant to this day.

The patient №8.

Maupassant (1850-1893), French writer. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms
The history of the disease
The ideas presented to the world. Fiziologizma naturalism (including erotic) in the literature.

The patient №9.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), British writer. h6>
Diagnosis
Symptoms
The history of the disease
Nervous, impressionable girl in despair tried to commit suicide. She rescued, but the deep, protracted depression have since become part of her life. A strong attack of mental disorder overtook the young Virginia and after his father's death in 1904.

Emotional and frank letters and works of Virginia Woolf give grounds for concluding that gay writer. However, this is not true. Due to the experienced childhood tragedy, the fear that she had over men and society, she fell in love with women - but abhor all forms of intimacy, including them, could not bear hugs, does not allow even a handshake. Being 29 years old is married to Leonard Woolf (and the marriage is considered to be exemplary in terms of loyalty and emotional support to spouses of each other), author, by some accounts, has not been able to enter into marital relations with her husband.

In early 1941, the night the bombing of London destroyed the house of the writer, burned library, almost died beloved husband - all completely upset her nervous system, doctors insisted on treating psychiatric klinike.Ne wishing that the rest of his life husband spent in care-related her madness, she March 28, 1941 she performed that is not just described in his works, and that not once tried to put into practice - committed suicide by drowning in the river Ous.

The ideas presented to the world. The innovation in the methods of presentation of transient worldly vanity, display of the inner world of heroes, many ways description of refraction of consciousness - the works of Virginia Woolf entered the golden fund of literary modernism and accepted with enthusiasm