Towards the end of the 19th century, two writers who are considered the uppermost representatives of their respective national literatures, Dostoyevsky of Russia and Machado de Assis of Brazil had epilepsy, probably both temporal lobe epilepsy, but their attitudes were opposite. Dostoyevsky was as open about his diagnosis as Machado was secretive, but both included seizure experiences in their works. Two of Dostoyevsky's many epileptic characters, Prince Myshkin in The Idiot and Kirillov in Devils, report the same ecstatic aura as Dostoyevsky did privately. That Kirillov only has isolated auras probably reflects the early phase of Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. A hitherto overlooked feature, these reports with numerous reformulations and metaphors are linguistically characteristic for self-reports of epileptic auras, related to the indescribability of the experiences. In Idiot, two seizure prodromes with great artistic skill are integrated into the fictional context. Machado in his writings never talked overtly about seizures and epilepsy, but experiences of complex partial seizures can be identified in two of his novels, Brás Cubas and Quincas Borba. One depicts a complex visual illusion, the other seems precipitated by a coincidence of several ambivalent decisions with a specific memory. Quincas Borba (1891) has several features that can be understood as an homage to Dostoyevsky's Idiot (1869). Both writers share the notion that seizures can be triggered by strong emotions, and both stand out by their mastership of seamlessly integrating seizure experiences into the fictional and psychological cosmos of their novels. This article is part of the Special Issue "NEWroscience 2018".

中文翻译：

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陀思妥耶夫斯基和马查多·德·阿西斯作品中的癫痫体验

19世纪末，俄罗斯的陀思妥耶夫斯基和巴西的马查多·德·阿西斯这两位被认为是各自民族文学最高代表的作家患了癫痫，可能都是颞叶癫痫，但他们的态度却相反。陀思妥耶夫斯基对他的诊断和马查多的秘密一样公开，但两者都在他们的作品中包含癫痫发作的经历。陀思妥耶夫斯基笔下众多癫痫症人物中的两个，即《白痴》中的迈什金王子和《魔鬼》中的基里洛夫，都表现出与陀思妥耶夫斯基私下所做的相同的狂喜光环。基里洛夫只有孤立的光环可能反映了陀思妥耶夫斯基癫痫症的早期阶段。迄今为止被忽视的一个特征，这些带有许多重新表述和隐喻的报告在语言上具有癫痫先兆的自我报告的特征，与经历的不可描述性有关。在白痴中，两个具有很高艺术技巧的癫痫前驱症状被整合到虚构的背景中。马查多在他的著作中从未公开谈论过癫痫和癫痫，但在他的两部小说 Brás Cubas 和 Quincas Borba 中可以确定复杂部分性癫痫的经历。一个描绘了复杂的视觉错觉，另一个似乎是由具有特定记忆的几个矛盾决定的巧合所促成的。昆卡斯·博尔巴 (Quincas Borba) (1891) 有几个特点，可以理解为是对陀思妥耶夫斯基 (Dostoyevsky) 的白痴 (1869) 的致敬。两位作家都认为强烈的情绪可以引发癫痫发作，并且都因将癫痫发作无缝整合到小说的虚构和心理宇宙中的精湛技艺而脱颖而出。