Gender questions and the experience of madness in ancient times and middle ages

Abstract

Madness embodies, in different historical periods, a specific connotation linked to the existing social organization, which imposes speeches, outlines procedures and treatments and defines social places for those affected by it. Based on this premise, we developed a research which proposes a thematic bibliographic review, aiming at learning meanings and interpretations of the experience of madness in Western culture, focusing on the ancient and medieval times. As the object of examination, the article addresses discourses that depicted women as especially prone to this illness, revealing the connection between gender relations, imposed speeches and madness, a term that covers a wide range of experiences related to different failures of the faculty of reason and unusual or transgressive behaviors.