Madhouse of Language

By Allan Ingram

Subjects: Psycholinguistics, Literature and mental illness, Langage, European, Littérature et maladies mentales, English literature, history and criticism, 18th century, Literature, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Mentally ill, great britain, Mental illness in literature, Littérature anglaise, English language, history, Language, Histoire, Languages (study discipline), Language (general communication), Mentally ill, English language, Psycholinguistique, LITERARY CRITICISM, Style, Mentally ill in literature, Personnes vivant avec un trouble de santé mentale dans la littérature, Fiction, English language, style, Personnes vivant avec un trouble de santé mentale, Médecine, Mentally Ill Persons, Language and languages, Langage et langues, History and criticism, Histoire et critique, English literature, Medicine in Literature, History, Medicine in literature, Maladies mentales dans la littérature, History, 18th Century, Medicine, Mental Disorders, Médecine dans la littérature

Description: In The Madhouse of Language, the history of writing about madness is seen in terms of a suppression of mad language by an increasingly confident medical profession, in which orthodox attitudes towards language are endorsed by rigorous treatment of the insane, or by a manipulative moral therapy. Recognised writers of the period reflect the fascination with a form of mental existence that nevertheless remains beyond expression through socially acceptable forms of language. A wide variety of written and oral material by mad men and women, drawn both from medical records and from published works, is discussed in the context of this linguistic suppression. The context, forms and strategies of mad texts are analysed in a highly original account of the linguistic relations between madness and sanity, of the appropriation by sane writers of the forms of English, and of attempts by mad patients to gain access to the expressive potential of language.