Epilepsy in fiction
Epilepsy in
non-fiction
Epilepsy as a
metaphor
Epilepsia in
dictionaries
Epilepsy appears
frequently in literary texts.
Sometimes based on the author’s experience, as in the case of
Dostoievski, the disease is at the center of the plot – such as
in The Idiot (1868-1869). Other times, and for the same
reason, as in the case of Machado de Assis, it is not even
mentioned.
The dramatic aspects of epilepsy seizures make the disease a
frequent element in novels and other fictional narratives,
either as a structuring factor – as in the case of the English
novel Poor Miss Finch, by Wilkie Collins (1872) – as a
metaphor – as in the recent lyrics to the song by Rita Lee,
Amor e sexo – or as an indication to disqualify a fictional
character or historical personality – as in the case of the
brief description of the Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand V in the
recent novel by Arthur Philips, Prague.
For their eloquence in relation to the research hypotheses, we
gather here some examples of allusions to epilepsy in literary
works, although the relationship between epilepsy and fictional
narrative is not one of the team’s objectives.
Dr. Peter Wolf, a neurologist from Bielefeld-Bethel, has
collected some significant examples of the relationship between
epilepsy and fictional narrative, organized in a list that can
be found in French, English, German, Russian, Spanish and
Turkish at the Website of the German Museum of Epilepsy in Kork,
at:
www.epilepsiemuseum.de.
Our objective here is more modest: to give some examples, found
in books that the team members read for pleasure during the
research period, that show how allusions to epilepsy or the
mention of this disease in fiction or narrative is constant and
varied, regardless of the latitude where the works were
produced, and often indicates the prejudices that surround
people suffering from epilepsy.
If besides constituting a sampling, the passages chosen serve to
suggest further adventures in reading, the team of the research
project Science and Prejudice: A Social History of Epilepsy
in Brazilian Medical Thinking. 1859-1906 considers that this
page has accomplished its aim.
