Madness in Literature

"A remarkable scholarly achievement. Madness in Literature remains refreshingly free of narrow dogmatizing and special pleading."—Jeffrey Berman, English Language Notes

"Madness is studied by Lillian Feder in its relationship with society—whether the madness be prophetic or dionysiac, as in ancient Greece, or of the form that leads to suicide, as in the contemporary cases of Theodore Roethke and Sylvia Plath. With considerable erudition, which is never pompously exposed, Miss Feder has played simultaneously the roles of literary critic, of psychoanalyst, and of cultural historian."—Wallace Fowlie, The Sewanee Review