Madness

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani approaches madness through the formula "the others and the true without the self": the madman is the alienus, the one who cannot enter into communication1. He adds, however, that when the collective itself loses its reason, responsibility may fall on the madman2. His main example is Gérard de Nerval, an author whose madness is emblematic. He sees in it a psychosis, an "outpouring of dream into real life", with alternating manic and depressive phases3. He points out Nerval's hesitation about his own identity4. He sees Nerval's prose as an attempt at healing, while the Chimères are written in a state of supernaturalist reverie5. He also quotes the sentence "The only madness that will probably remain to me will be to believe myself a poet", which he considers the most reasonable thing a madman ever said6. He takes from Foucault the idea that the confinement of that period isolated more than it cured7. Finally, he takes from Freud the idea that normal and pathological differ in degree, not in nature8.

1. 1#5.2 ter FaceBookLive / Questions (2) suite à l'Atelier #5.26 Dec 2018 · 27:09
2. 2Keller (Helen)15 Feb 2016 · 1:45:24
3. 3Griaule (Marcel)18 Oct 2017 · 58:41
4. 4#4.5 Angélique (de Nerval)12 Feb 2018 · 42:06
5. 5#4.5 Angélique (de Nerval)12 Feb 2018 · 1:03:25
6. 6Griaule (Marcel)18 Oct 2017 · 1:01:11
7. 7Griaule (Marcel)18 Oct 2017 · 45:40
8. 8#6 • Les Attelé(e)s de la confinitude26 Apr 2020 · 59:07

Summary produced automatically from 8 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.