The strange phenomenon of the creative illness is something we sometimes find among artists. What is meant here isn’t the often-noted connection between psychological instability and artistic activity, but rather the creative response of the artist to the effects of purely, or initially, physical symptoms and disorders. In his classic 1968 paper on the subject, the historian of psychology Henri Ellenberger quoted the German Romantic philosopher Novalis’ words to the effect that illness is a universal condition we all struggle with, and that it may provide “the most
