“Mind Games:
Reading Classics Stimulates Brain Activity”
by RT.com
by RT.com
“British scientists have proved that reading Shakespeare and other classics can stimulate the mind and has a beneficial effect on brain activity. Scientists at Liverpool University have monitored the brain activity of a number of volunteers while they were reading works by William Shakespeare, T.S Eliot and others, The Daily Telegraph reports. Then the original texts were altered and "translated" to simpler modern language and given to the readers again. The data recorded during reading both versions of the text proved that the more "sophisticated" the language in both prose and poetry the more electrical activity the reader's brain showed.
Scientists tracked the brain activity caused by certain words and saw that unusual words and complicated sentence structures stimulated the brain. "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," The Daily Telegraph quotes Professor Philip Davis involved in the study as saying.
According to the study poetry particularly stimulates activity in the right hemisphere of the brain responsible for self-reflection, creativity and imagination. "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," Professor Davis said. Sophisticated and unusual words in the text also prompted better concentration of the reader after they've come across these words. The researchers' conclusion that reading the classics is better and more useful for the mind than easy-reads might not be a surprise to many avid readers.”
Scientists tracked the brain activity caused by certain words and saw that unusual words and complicated sentence structures stimulated the brain. "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," The Daily Telegraph quotes Professor Philip Davis involved in the study as saying.
According to the study poetry particularly stimulates activity in the right hemisphere of the brain responsible for self-reflection, creativity and imagination. "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," Professor Davis said. Sophisticated and unusual words in the text also prompted better concentration of the reader after they've come across these words. The researchers' conclusion that reading the classics is better and more useful for the mind than easy-reads might not be a surprise to many avid readers.”
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"All the World's a Stage"
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
- William Shakespeare
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