Wod et wude dans la littérature médiévale anglaise ou l'espace de la folie

Abstract

Wod and wude in medieval English literature or the geography of Madness. Lunatics are not familiar figures in English medieval works. In particular, they hardly play any role in Old English literature. (...) Before the introduction of romance, in the 12th century, the few examples of lunatics are Biblical heroes or those considered as possessed by the Devil (sick people, sinners, or pagans). On the other hand, Lives of Saints present men and women madly in love with God, hermits withdrawn into deserts, and fascinating mystics while in epics madness is associated with anger: infuriated warriors fight on the battlefield. In the 14th and 15th centuries, with romance now a well-established genre, knights are often shown as temporarily unsound. Mental disorder is then a (necessary?) stage in their inner development: deeply bewildered, they separate themselves from society and find refuge in the forest; in romances, the madman is a wild man. Quite different is the urban fool, the court jester, whose (pretended) madness reveals concealed wisdom. The king’s fool appeared in medieval works but had his hour of glory, later on, in Elizabethan drama. Lunatics, fools, all those beside themselves, though not totally absent from English medieval texts, remain, throughout the period, in the background.

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