If you have original Shakespeare don't throw and away. Read up

SCIENCE NEWS
Shakespeare and Wordsworth boost
the brain, new research reveals
The works of Shakespeare and
Wordsworth are “rocket-boosters” to
the brain and better therapy than self-
help books, researchers will say this
week.
Image 1 of 2
(L-R): English playwright William
Shakespeare and English poet
William Wordsworth Photo: ALAMY
By Julie Henry, Education
Correspondent
8:30AM GMT 13 Jan 2013
54 Comments
Scientists, psychologists and English
academics at Liverpool University
have found that reading the works of
the Bard and other classical writers
has a beneficial effect on the mind,
catches the reader’s attention and
triggers moments of self-reflection.
Using scanners, they monitored the
brain activity of volunteers as they
read works by William Shakespeare,
William Wordsworth, T.S Eliot and
others.
They then “translated” the texts into
more “straightforward”, modern
language and again monitored the
readers’ brains as they read the
words.
Scans showed that the more
“challenging” prose and poetry set off
far more electrical activity in the
brain than the more pedestrian
versions.
Scientists were able to study the
brain activity as it responded to each
word and record how it “lit up” as the
readers encountered unusual words,
surprising phrases or difficult
sentence structure.
Related Articles
Shakespeare tests can give
children demons, says Mark
Rylance
01 Mar 2013
'I feel bitter and sweet about Dad’
21 Apr 2013
Shakespeare, the sci-fi king 27
Jan 2014
Was Shakespeare a tax dodger?
31 Mar 2013
Teach Jane Austen, state schools
to be told
06 Nov 2011
Schama speaks up for children
and Shakespeare
11 Jun 2012
This “lighting up” of the mind lasts
longer than the initial electrical spark,
shifting the brain to a higher gear,
encouraging further reading.
The research also found that reading
poetry, in particular, increases
activity in the right hemisphere of the
brain, an area concerned with
“autobiographical memory”, helping
the reader to reflect on and reappraise
their own experiences in light of what
they have read. The academics said
this meant the classics were more
useful than self-help books.
Philip Davis, an English professor
who has worked on the study with the
university’s magnetic resonance
centre, will tell a conference this
week: “Serious literature acts like a
rocket-booster to the brain.
"The research shows the power of
literature to shift mental pathways, to
create new thoughts, shapes and
connections in the young and the
staid alike.”
In the first part of the research, the
brain activity of 30 volunteers was
monitored as they read passages
from Shakespeare plays, including
King Lear, Othello, Coriolanus and
Macbeth, and again as they read the
text rewritten in simpler form.
While reading the plain text, normal
levels of electrical activity were
displayed in their brains. When they
read Shakespeare, however, the levels
of activity “jumped” because of his
use of words which were unfamiliar
to the readers.
Scans of brain activity during reading
show heightened electrical activity
when faced with 'challenging' texts by
great writers
In one example, volunteers read a line
from King Lear: “A father and a
gracious aged man: him have you
madded”. They then read a simpler
version: “A father and a gracious
aged man: him you have enraged.”
Shakespeare’s use of the adjective
“mad” as a verb sparked a higher
level of brain activity than the
straightforward prose.
The study went on to test how long
the effect lasted. It found that the
“peak” triggered by the unfamiliar
word was sustained onto the
following phrases, suggesting the
striking word had hooked the reader,
with their mind “primed for more
attention”.
Working with psychologists at the
university, the next phase of the
research is looking at the extent to
which poetry can provide therapeutic
benefit, using the work of, among
others William Wordsworth, Henry
Vaughan, John Donne, Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, T.S. Eliot, Philip
Larkin and Ted Hughes.
Volunteers brains have been scanned
while reading four lines by
Wordsworth: “She lived unknown and
few could know, when Lucy ceased to
be. But she is in her grave and oh, the
difference to me.”
Four “translated” lines were also
provided: “She lived a lonely life in
the country, and nobody seems to
know or care, but now she is dead,
and I feel her loss.”
The first version caused a greater
degree of brain activity, lighting up
not only the left part of the brain
concerned with language, but also the
right hemisphere that relates to
autobiographical memory and
emotion.
The brain shows minimal activity
when the text is translated into
'modern' prose
Intense activity is this area of the
brain suggests that the poetry
triggers “reappraisal mechanisms”
causing the reader to reflect and
rethink their own experiences in light
of what they read.
“Poetry is not just a matter of style. It
is a matter of deep versions of
experience that add the emotional
and biographical to the cognitive,”
said Professor Davis, who will
present the findings at the North of
England education conference in
Sheffield next week.
“This is the argument for serious
language in serious literature for
serious human situations, instead of
self-help books or the easy reads that
merely reinforce predictable opinions
and conventional self-images.”
Professor Davis hopes to scan the
brains of volunteers reading Charles
Dickens to test if revisions the writer
made to his prose spark greater brain
activity than the original text.
He is now working with the charity
The Reader Organisation to establish
reading aloud groups in GP drop-in
centres, care homes, prisons,
libraries, schools and mother and
toddler groups.
Joint research with University College
London will also study the effects of
reading in dementia sufferers.