Mood Spectrum in Graham Greene
1929-1949
Published on 28. October 2015
Book
Hardback
210 pages
978-1-4438-8253-8 (ISBN)
Description
Mood Spectrum in Graham Greene examines the pathology of bipolar disorder through symptoms uniquely expressed in the writer's novels. It explains and illustrates how mutated genes endow him with artistic genius, even as they engender a mental illness that too often results in a life barren of intimacy, and in an unquiet mind that can lead to psychosis and suicide if untreated. Critics have generally either ignored his illness in his novels or ascribed agency based on false psychological models, despite Greene often projecting his illness into character-constructs that share his condition and that provide the reader with a virtual case study of manic depression.
Reviews / Votes
'In a series of highly illuminating chapters, Edwards shows how the characters in those novels project his dominant moods and their fluctuations across the wide range of the whole mood spectrum. [...] Brian Edwards has succeeded in an important task: drawing our attention to an aspect of a major novelist's work that is vital to a real understanding of it. He has also opened up the possibility of similarly valuable work being done on the same lines on the influence of mental illness on the many literary artists listed above, and, I imagine, others too.'Dr Alan PalmerStyle, 50:3 (2016)More details
Edition
Unabridged edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Newcastle upon Tyne
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Unabridged edition
Product notice
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 212 mm
Width: 148 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-4438-8253-8 (9781443882538)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2015
1st Edition
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
€168.99
Available for download
Person
Dr Brian Edwards has been a teacher and scholar for many years, focusing on modern literatures, writing, psychology, and theatre. In 2007, he enrolled in a doctoral program at Northern Illinois University. His writing and thinking helped him win a university-wide award in 2012 as one of the five best dissertation proposals among a group in multiple disciplines. Dr Edwards completed his dissertation in 2013, a study of the novelist Graham Greene, titled "It's a Battlefield: Manic Depression in Graham Greene's Novels," a ground-breaking study that describes and explains how bipolar disorder in Greene's novels reflects the connection between creativity and his mood-affected mental illness. During his graduate studies and following the completion of his PhD, Dr Edwards published articles and reviews in such journals as Style and Interdisciplinary Studies. He is currently crafting a proposal for a second monograph on Graham Greene: 1950-1969, which will demonstrate the progressive nature of manic depression.