Ecstasy in Post-Unification Italy (1861-1915)
Frances Clemente
November 30, 2026 DOI: 10.1093/9780197911945.001.0001 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis |
|---|---|
| Topics | MDMA |
| Key points | Argues that ecstatic phenomena in post-unification Italy were framed as disorderly and subject to normative surveillance, and that literary authors used ecstasy to explore the self's inner tensions, anticipating Freudian concepts. |
Abstract
Abstract The book investigates the notion of ecstasy in Italian culture and literature between 1861 and 1915. Combining historical and cultural investigation with literary analysis, it traces the circulation and spreading of ecstatic phenomena in a variety of different discourses, specifically, those related to religion, science, and ‘occulture’, and the ways they were portrayed by Italian writers of the period. Focusing on mystical ecstasies, magnetic ecstasies, mediumistic trances, hypnotic trances, and hysterical extases, it shows how ecstatic subjects were regarded as abnormal, disorderly individuals who needed to be overseen, governed, or repressed. It also discusses how prominent authors of Italian post-unification literature, namely Matilde Serao, Antonio Fogazzaro, Luigi Capuana, and Gabriele D’Annunzio, delivered literary depictions of ecstasy, finding in it a fundamental trope to explore the disorderly, inner tensions of the self, anticipating Freud’s theorizations of the unconscious and the death drive. The book proposes the existence of an ‘ecstatic Italy’ between 1861 and 1915, providing a new theoretical frame to analyse Italian modernity at a pivotal period in the country’s history. This theoretical frame uncovers a dialectical tension between, on the one hand, an ‘ecstatic dis-order’, manifesting itself through ecstatic subjectivities (mostly female) that undermined the order the establishment was striving towards, pervading it with chaos and disarray, and, on the other hand, a static order (usually masculine), exerting, through different agencies, a power of repressive and normative surveillance upon these ecstatic subjectivities, in order to maintain the cohesion and steadiness of Italian citizens and of the newly unified country.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on MDMA, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Differences Between the Mechanism of Action of MDMA, MBDB, and the Classic Hallucinogens. Identification of a New Therapeutic Class: Entactogens | 1986 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Background and Chemistry of MDMA | 1986 | Historical analysis | |
| The origin of MDMA (ecstasy) revisited: the true story reconstructed from the original documents* Original documents in Merck's historical archive in Darmstadt, Germany, years 1900–1960 | 2006 | Historical analysis | |
| Distinct neural mechanisms for the prosocial and rewarding properties of MDMA | 2019 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How could MDMA (ecstasy) help anxiety disorders? A neurobiological rationale | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |