It has often been said—though sometimes tongue-in-cheek—that there is as much to be learnt from great works of literature about the malfunctioning of human thoughts and feelings as from the standard textbooks of psychiatry. This obviously over-simplifies the situation; very much more of psychiatric interest will be found in classic writings by one who knows what he is looking for, through knowledge of the discipline's basic texts. But it is true enough to make the ever-increasing emphasis on scientific and technical information in psychiatric training a matter of some regret. What shall it profit us, in trying to help patients, if we know more and more biochemistry and pharmacology, but at the same time lose the insight that artists and writers have recorded over centuries about the human condition?