It occurs to me to include a bit of a backstory on the place of illness in the history of narrative.
From an article in the blog The Marginalia, by Maria Popova, quote by Virginia Woolf -
“To hinder the description of illness in literature, there is the poverty of the language. English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. It has all grown one way.”
Virginia Woolf essay: On Being Ill (pdf)
John Green, Vlogbrothers YouTube channel
On Disease, Nov 2022
John's general take on the subject, from just last year (2022) -
How much better would our lives, our health and well-being be, worldwide, if we stopped attributing illness to morality? It’s stunning.
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