Extravagance et mélancolie. La problématique mélancolique comme support de l'exception cornélienne
Extravagance et mélancolie. La problématique mélancolique comme support de l'exception cornélienne

Summary/Abstract: Pierre Corneille's early plays contain elements of theatrical extravagances derived from the medical tradition of melancholy. A short description of lovesickness as a form of pathological melancholy sets the theoretical limits of this enquiry: old medicine considered love a contagious disease triggering a humoral imbalance in the body and thus endangering the patient's life. Corneille uses this medical background to insert funnily extravagant situations in plays like Mélite and Clitandre. Our attention is focused on two episodes of the erotic pathology as illustrated by those plays: the neo-platonic model of love contagion through the eyes and the galenic model of melancholy induced hallucinations.

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