Avant-propos
This introductory article aims to present a range of questions relating to the « therapeutic uses of literature » from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Beginning with the ambivalent image of a pharmakon type of literature, both poisoning and healing, the article deals with the old rivalry between phi...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institut du Monde Anglophone
2008-06-01
|
| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/890 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | This introductory article aims to present a range of questions relating to the « therapeutic uses of literature » from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Beginning with the ambivalent image of a pharmakon type of literature, both poisoning and healing, the article deals with the old rivalry between philosophy and literature on the subject of « the therapy of the soul ». Evoking formal and stylistic qualities of literary speech which may have been considered efficient by patients and physicians, it focuses on the decisive action of imagination in literary reading: the central notion of energy, shared by philosophy, pharmacology and rhetoric, allows us to understand the way literature was used – in a more or less direct way – in the struggle against illness. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1634-0450 |