Article
French
ID: <
10670/1.vmttkk>
Abstract
In his autobiography, writer and doctor Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) tells us that mental illnesses draw him especially by whatever may be their “poetic or at least literary” qualities. Referring to a tragedy reported in the news (a mentally ill person kills his brother – an authentic case of murderous paranoia), Schnitzler undertakes to show us, through fiction, that literary expertise is superior to medical expertise for feeling and translating the complexity of singular situations. He builds his demonstration drawing as much on his knowledge of the neurological sciences and psychiatry as he does the tradition of romantic medicine and tales of the fantastic.