Disease and Literature

The subject of disease—whether as a metaphor for spiritual corruption manifested in the body or as symbol of social ills—is one of the most prevalent in modern literature. While the allegorical presence of sickness was observed by the ancient Greek dramatists and exploited by medieval writers, the topic was elevated to a much greater prominence by the Romantics and their successors. In France, the Symbolist and Decadent movements embraced disease, especially mental illness, as part of the artist’s natural state. Arthur Rimbaud, for example, wrote that the visionary poet must undergo a thorough derangement of the senses in order to achieve his ends. In Russia, Fyodor Dostoevsky pioneered the modern conception of the anti-hero, a criminal or otherwise marginal figure,...