The Madman
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23623945 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rebecca Reich (University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Pages | 824-841 |
| Publication date | 2024-12-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | New Cambridge History of Russian Literature (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1017/9781108655620.049 |
| OpenAlex | W4405905259 |
| ISBN | 9781108655620 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
The figure of the madman has been invoked in Russian literature from the medieval period to the present day. This chapter investigates the evolution of that tradition with an emphasis on the period from Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 to the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. It identifies four strains of literary madness: the divine madman, exemplified by the holy fool who tests society’s virtue and speaks truth to power; the creative madman, whose irrational behaviour stems from poetic inspiration and the generative power of the word; the rational madman, who follows a logical system to pathological extremes or inverts that paradigm by revolting against reason; and the political madman, whose sanity is often pathologised by a society that itself has lost its mind. Together, these paradigms of madness constitute an intertextual web of allusions and character types that have been embodied and amended over time.
Computer Science · Russian Literature and Bakhtin Studies · Soviet and Russian History · Vladimir Nabokov Literary Studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |