ISBN: 9780472089994

Revels in Madness offers a history of western culture's shifting understandings of insanity as evidenced in its literature and as influenced by medical knowledge. The survey traces the pe… Mehr…

Revels in Madness offers a history of western culture's shifting understandings of insanity as evidenced in its literature and as influenced by medical knowledge. The survey traces the period from the development of Greek medicine, and of Greek tragedy and comedy, to contemporary representations of madness as shaped by modern psychiatry and psychoanalysis and portrayed in literature. It surveys a remarkable range of writers, including Cervantes, Nerval, Rimbaud, Holderin, Charcot, Freud, and Kraepelin.Conceptions of madness in literature have reflected the cultural assumptions of their era. During medieval times, insanity was viewed as a trial sent by God, while during the nineteenth century, it was seen simply as a sign of degenerate heredity. These two points of view represent a pre-modern and a modern understanding of madness, and the book is organized to emphasize the transition from classical theories of madness to modernity. This transition began at the end of the Enlightenment and culminates in the reactions seen in recent women's writing which challenge the postmodern understanding of madness as a fall from language or as a dysfunction of the cybernetic system that we new define as culture.This book will interest those intrigued by the relationship between culture, medicine, and literature, both in the history of medicine and literature and in literary depictions of cognitive disabilities. Students of comparative literature or the history of science, as well at doctors, therapists, and those interested in clinical psychology will enjoy reading this book. New Textbooks>Trade Paperback>Literature>Lit Studies>Lit Theory & Criticism, University of Michigan Press Core >1 >T<

ISBN: 9780472089994

Fascinating and important . . . a work of prodigious scholarship, covering the entire history of Western thought and treating both literary and medical discourses with subtlety and verve.… Mehr…

Fascinating and important . . . a work of prodigious scholarship, covering the entire history of Western thought and treating both literary and medical discourses with subtlety and verve.—-Louis Sass, author of Madness and ModernismThe scope of this book is daunting, ranging from madness in the ancient Greco-Roman world, to Christianized concepts of medieval folly, through the writings of early modern authors such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Descartes, and on to German Romantic philosophy, fin de siècle French poetry, and Freud . . . Artaud, Duras, and Plath.—-IsisThis provocative and closely argued work will reward many readers.—-ChoiceIn Revels in Madness, Allen Thiher surveys a remarkable range of writers as he shows how conceptions of madness in literature have reflected the cultural assumptions of their era. Thiher underscores the transition from classical to modern theories of madness-a transition that began at the end of the Enlightenment and culminates in recent women's writing that challenges the postmodern understanding of madness as a fall from language or as a dysfunction of culture. New Textbooks>Trade Paperback>Literature>Lit Studies>Lit Theory & Criticism, University of Michigan Press Core >1 >T<

ISBN: 9780472089994

Fascinating and important . . . a work of prodigious scholarship, covering the entire history of Western thought and treating both literary and medical discourses with subtlety and verve.… Mehr…

Fascinating and important . . . a work of prodigious scholarship, covering the entire history of Western thought and treating both literary and medical discourses with subtlety and verve.---Louis Sass, author of Madness and ModernismThe scope of this book is daunting, ranging from madness in the ancient Greco-Roman world, to Christianized concepts of medieval folly, through the writings of early modern authors such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Descartes, and on to German Romantic philosophy, fin de siècle French poetry, and Freud . . . Artaud, Duras, and Plath.---IsisThis provocative and closely argued work will reward many readers.---ChoiceIn Revels in Madness, Allen Thiher surveys a remarkable range of writers as he shows how conceptions of madness in literature have reflected the cultural assumptions of their era. Thiher underscores the transition from classical to modern theories of madness-a transition that began at the end of the Enlightenment and culminates in recent women's writing that challenges the postmodern understanding of madness as a fall from language or as a dysfunction of culture. New Textbooks>Trade Paperback>Classics>Lit Studies>Lit Theory & Criticism, University of Michigan Press Core >1 >T<

ISBN: 9780472089994

Revels in Madness: Insanity in Medicine and Literature Revels-in-Madness~~Allen-Thiher Literature>Lit Studies>Lit Theory & Criticism Paperback, University of Michigan Press