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Roaring Poetry, Singing Frenzy. A Transcultural Enquiry on Lovesickness
Fazio, Nicoletta
Fazio, Nicoletta
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n49.pdf
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Abstract
Madness is an intriguing topic since Antiquity. By now, it seems madness has acquired a fully clinical appearance; it has been polished from all its puzzling, embarrassing and even obscene implications and dressed with the reassuring white gown of medicine. While discussing about mental health and its historical development scholars should be aware of the sensitive difference between ‘mental illness’, as a medical category, and a broader phenomenon commonly and vaguely called ‘madness’. This paper aims to present a brief comparative overview of the socio-cultural perception and visual depiction of a specific form of madness, i.e. lovesickness - ‛ishq and amor hereos as classified in medical treatises from the Early Middle Ages onwards. In order to shed light on the status of lovesickness in Islamic and European cultures between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a couple of infamous as well as paradigmatic examples of lovesick have been chosen, Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso Orlando and Niẓāmī Ganjavi’s Laylī va Majnūn hero Qays, popularly known as Majnūn. This paper will show how Islam and West dealt with some questions lovesickness raised and how literary and artistic sources conveyed specific images of lovesickness shaping and influencing people’s imagery.
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2013
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With permission of the license/copyright holder