Mad Memoirs (Confessions)

[alice wellintown]

Madness in Seventeenth-Century Autobiography
Katharine Hodgkin

Katharine Hodgkin's Madness in Seventeenth-Century Autobiography is a
welcome, thought-provoking contribution to our understanding of the
cultural history of madness. It partly draws on Michael Macdonald's
seminal work on the popular beliefs and social practices related to
insanity in 17th-century England, and on his lucid analysis of the
detailed case notes of the physician Richard Napier. But it also seeks
to examine the perspectives of the sufferers by focusing on three
spiritual autobiographies by people who had experienced (and recovered
from) some transient form of madness during that century. Furthermore,
its intricate exploration of the articulations of the self makes this
study distinct from Jeremy Schmidt's recent work on the intertwining
of medicine, religion and moral philosophy in the English 17th-century
context. (1)


http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/671


On 8/19/13, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> A fine essay in the January 2010 New Yorker
>
> But Enough About MeWhat does the popularity of memoirs tell us about
> ourselves?by Daniel Mendelsohn
> January 25, 2010
>
> http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/01/25/100125crbo_books_mendelsohn
>