Madness and reason

Literature is drawn to madness because it allows what reason forbids to be said: a hidalgo who takes windmills for giants may see better than his neighbours, a Russian clerk keeps a diary in which the dates come apart, a man believes himself inhabited by an invisible presence. The twentieth century shifts the question towards the institution: an American asylum becomes a place of power struggle, a young woman under a bell jar tells of her own collapse, an ageing king divides his kingdom in Kurosawa.

works 10

• NovelDon QuixoteDon Quijote de la ManchaMiguel de Cervantes · 1605A hidalgo who takes himself for a knight errant sets out to right wrongs, with a neighbouring peasant as his squire.LiteraturePublic domain
• Short storiesDiary of a MadmanЗаписки сумасшедшегоNikolai Gogol · 1835A story of 1835, in the form of a diary, in which a minor ministry clerk slides into madness.Literature
• NarrativeAuréliaGérard de Nerval · 1855A man who has lost the woman he loved records his dreams as the stages of a journey of the soul.Literature
• Short storiesThe HorlaLe HorlaGuy de Maupassant · 1887A solitary man records, day after day, the signs of a presence he cannot see.LiteraturePublic domain
• CinemaThrough a Glass DarklySåsom i en spegelIngmar Bergman · 1961Four people spend the summer in a house on an island, and one of them moves towards a place where the others cannot follow her.Cinema
• NovelThe Bell JarSylvia Plath · 1963The novel follows from within the depression of a young woman in the America of the fifties.Literature
• CinemaRepulsionRoman Polański · 1965The narrative follows the isolation of a young woman shut up in a London flat.Cinema
• NovelThe Master and MargaritaМастер и МаргаритаMikhail Bulgakov · 1967A posthumous novel, published in 1967: the devil on a visit to Moscow, and the Roman prosecutor of Judea.Literature
• CinemaOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestMiloš Forman · 1975Adapted from Ken Kesey's novel, the film was shot in a real psychiatric hospital, in Salem, with real patients among the extras.Cinema
• CinemaRan乱Akira Kurosawa · 1985A film of 1985 in which an old lord divides his lands among his sons during his lifetime, in a Japan of clan wars.Cinema