The madness of Gerard de Nerval.
Medical Humanities June 1, 2014 Allan Beveridge
This paper examines the madness of the nineteenth-century French writer Gerard de Nerval, focusing on his account of mental disturbance, his response to the psychiatric profession, and his reaction to being diagnosed as insane. It considers his autobiographical novella Aurelia, begun at the suggestion of his alienist, Dr Emile Blanche, while he was still an asylum inmate. Nerval's story raises questions about whether madness is a mystical experience revealing truths about spiritual worlds inaccessible to the 'sane', whether psychiatry fails to understand it by reducing it to scientific reason, or whether romanticizing insanity makes extravagant claims for a disturbing experience. The paper also explores the relationship between madness and recovery, and whether the language of madness can be decoded to unveil profound truths or is merely empty speech acts.