“Poetry begins as the divine speech of the bicameral mind. Then, as the bicameral mind breaks down, there remain prophets.”

—  Julian Jaynes, book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Book III, Chapter 3, p. 374
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

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Julian Jaynes43
American psychologist 1920–1997

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“I shall state my thesis plain. The first poets were gods. Poetry began with the bicameral mind.”

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“Paradise Lost, A further observation could be made upon the story of the Fall and how it is possible to look upon it as a myth of the breakdown of the bicameral mind.”

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“This breakdown in the bicameral mind in what is called the Intermediate Period is reminiscent at least of those periodic breakdowns of Mayan civilizations when all authority suddenly collapsed, and the population melted back into tribal living in the jungles.”

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Alberto Manguel photo

“The American psychologist Julian Jaynes, in a controversial study on the origin of consciousness, argued that the bicameral mind - in which one of the hemispheres becomes specialized in silent reading - is a late development in humankind's evolution, and that the process by which this function develops is still changing.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

The Silent Readers, p. 46.
A History of Reading (1996)

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“By contemplation I swear,
By the beginning of speech,
By the flight of a dove from the mind.
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“Cultivate quietness in word, quietness in deed, likewise in speech and gait; and avoid impetuous eagerness, for then the mind will remain steady, and will not be agitated by your eagerness. … For the mind, seated on high on a quiet throne looking intently towards God, must control the passions, … so that your quietness may be adorned by good proportion and your bearing may appear something divine.”

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