Abstract
This paper looks at the particular relationship between madness and sanity in a dictatorship, specifically in Soviet Russia, as analyzed in Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita and in Alexander Zinoviev’s The Madhouse. In both cases, albeit in different ways, madness is regarded as a form resistance to communism (Stalin’s and Brezhnev’s), as a particular kind of sanity, and finally as a creative vocation. The relationship between madness and sanity is seen as reversible and can change depending on different perspectives—which are mostly political in the two novels. As illustrated by the two authors, the modern literary discourse on madness can be metaphorically shaped by the writer, as a generic category which can refer to various forms of resistance and deviation from the established social, political and cultural norms.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
«Ils se sentent souvent fort a l’aise dans une ambiance si défavorable a leurs aspirations. Le malheur du personnage—qui tient de la tragédie—est de la sorte pimente d'une sorte de complicité comique entre l'exclu et le milieu qui le torture«.
«[In Quijote] La coupure entre le protagoniste et le monde environnant este une donnée initiale du récit, une réalité accablante qui n’est susceptible ni d’explication ni de véritable résolution«.
«Le monde leur dit non, mais comme il n’y a pas d‘alternative, ils s’y installent quand même en dépit de l’exclusion dont ils font l’objet».
References
Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana, Indiana University Press.
Bulgakov, M. (1996). The Master and Margarita (D. Burgin & K. T. O’Connor, Trans.). New York: Random House.
Donnelly, T. (2012). Vogue diagnoses: The functions of madness in twentieth century American literature. Dissertation presented the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon.
Epstein, M. (2007). Methods of madness and madness as a method. In A. Brittlinger & I. Vinitsky (Eds.), Madness and the mad in Russian culture (pp. 263–282). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Epstein, M. (2012). The transformative humanities: A manifesto. New York; London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Erasmus, D. (1958). In Praise of Folly (J. Wilson Trans.). Grand Rapids, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Foucault, M. (1998). Madness and civilization. A history of insanity in the age of reason (R. Howard Trans.). New York: Vintage Books.
Hoffmann, E. T. A. (1999). The life and opinions of the Tomcat Murr. London: Penguin.
Mann, T. (1999). The life of the German composer Adrian Leverkuhn as told by a friend. New York: Vintage Books.
Pavel, T. (1986). Fictional worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pavel, T. (2003). La pensée du roman. Paris: Gallimard.
Sontag, S. (1978). Illness as metaphor. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.
Thiher, A. (1999). Revels in madness: Insanity in medicine and literature. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Zinoviev, A. (1986). The madhouse (M. Kirkwood Trans.). London: Victor Gollancz LTD.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Spiridon, M. In praise of madness: the landmarks of a cultural pathology. Neohelicon 43, 357–370 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-016-0340-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-016-0340-2