Open AccessMedicalized Literary Criticism in Fin de Siècle Norway
Author(s) -
Silje Haugen Warberg
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
tidsskrift for forskning i sygdom og samfund
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1904-7975
pISSN - 1604-3405
DOI - 10.7146/tfss.v16i31.116970
Subject(s) - criticism , literary criticism , norwegian , sociological criticism , decadence , fin de siecle , terminology , theatre criticism , literary science , literature , narrative , history , sociology , art , philosophy , linguistics
Medicalized literary criticism was a widespread phenomenon across Europe in the decades surrounding the year 1900. The term describes varied practices of literary criticism founded on medical terminology and imagery. Critics with different professional backgrounds participated in this type of criticism, often by connecting medical analogies to established notions of fin de siècle decline and decadence. This article explores the proliferation and various uses of medicalized literary criticism in Norway in this period, including a case study of the literary criticism and discussion performed by two Norwegian psychiatrists and asylum doctors, Johan Scharffenberg and Henrik A. Th. Dedichen. I argue that these ‘medics-as-critics’ responded and contributed to the medicalized literary criticism and, by extension, to the establishment and prevalence of certain illness narratives in the public sphere.