Shakepeare excites me!

December 19, 2006
Louise Brown Staff Reporter--Toronto Star

With Shakespeare, it seems the wordplay's the thing that keeps us big on the bard.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have found one of Shakespeare's favourite linguistic tricks - throwing odd words into otherwise normal sentences or using a noun as an unexpected verb - surprises the brain in a way that generates a sudden burst of mental activity that actually shows up on a brain scan.

This heightened brain energy, as reported today in the journal The Reader, may be one reason the bard's plays pack such a dramatic punch with audiences, the study suggests.

"The effect on the brain is a bit like a magic trick; we know what the trick means but we don't know how it happens - and instead of being confused in a negative sense, the brain is positively excited," said Professor Neil Roberts, from the University's Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre.

The authors attached electrodes to the scalps of 20 people and read selected lines from Shakespeare's plays to measure brain response.

Co-author Professor Philip Davis cites the phrase "he godded me" from Shakespeare's tragedy Coriolanus, which is an unusual way of saying "he treated me like a god" that Davis says actually catches the brain off-guard.

"When one word changes the grammar of a whole sentence, brain readings suddenly peak. The brain is then forced to re-trace its thinking process in order to understand what it is supposed to make of this unusual word," he said.

"By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare actually surprises the brain in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity - a sense of drama created out of the simplest things.

Davis said the research is "good for brain science" because it sheds light on how the brain works from moment to moment.

"It's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together; when you know how pieces fit, you can get bored," said Davis, "but if the pieces don't appear to fit at first, the brain becomes excited."