Psychosomatic Disorders in Seventeenth-Century French Literature (Literary and Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity)

Bernadette Hofer's innovative and ambitious monograph argues that the epistemology of the Cartesian mind/body dualism, and its insistence on the primacy of analytic thought over bodily function, has surprisingly little purchase in texts by prominent classical writers. In this study Hofer explores how Surin, Moliere, Lafayette, and Racine represent interconnections of body and mind that influence behaviour, both voluntary and involuntary, and that thus disprove the classical notion of the mind as distinct from and superior to the body. The author's interdisciplinary perspective utilizes early modern medical and philosophical treatises, as well as contemporary medical compilations in the disciplines of psychosomatic medicine, neurobiology, and psychoanalysis, to demonstrate that these seventeenth-century French writers established a view of human existence that fully anticipates current thought regarding psychosomatic illness. Bernadette Höfer's innovative and ambitious monograph argues that the epistemology of the Cartesian mind/body dualism, and its insistence on the primacy of analytic thought over bodily function, has surprisingly little purchase in texts by prominent classical writers. In this study Höfer explores how Surin, Molière, Lafayette, and Racine represent interconnections of body and mind that influence behaviour, both voluntary and involuntary, and that thus disprove the classical notion of the mind as distinct from and superior to the body. The author's interdisciplinary perspective utilizes early modern medical and philosophical treatises, as well as contemporary medical compilations in the disciplines of psychosomatic medicine, neurobiology, and psychoanalysis, to demonstrate that these seventeenth-century French writers established a view of human existence that fully anticipates current thought regarding psychosomatic illness. Contents 8 List of Figures 10 Acknowledgments 12 Note on Translations 14 Introduction 16 1 The Relational Conception of Mind and Body in the Seventeenth Century 28 2 Possession, Exorcism, and Madness: The Context of Jean-Joseph Surin’s Illness 74 3 Melancholic Subversions in Molière’s Le misanthrope (1666) and Le malade imaginaire (1673) 110 4 Psychosomatic Fiction in Madame de Lafayette: The Enigma of Illness 154 5 The Theater of Melancholy: Jean Racine’s Phèdre (1677) 190 Conclusion 226 Works Cited 234 Index 252