The Art of Frenzy

Frenzy - the most flagrant and political form of madness - is the madness of warrior-heroes, kings, scolds, and the possessed. Integrating art history with cultural studies, political history, and the history of medicine, this study draws on a wide range of mediums and contexts - asylum sculpture, political broadsheets, medical texts, the imagery of revolution, caricature and medical illustrations. Understood as abusive power and belligerence out of control, and described in terms drawn equally from definitions of tyranny and liberty, frenzy was always articulated with a significant degree of political meaning. This work aims to clarify the importance of this interpretative pattern.