Title: Idioms of Distress
First published: November 2002
Description: "This interdisciplinary study examines the enigmatic category of psychosomatic disorders as articulated in medical writings and represented in literary works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Six key works are analyzed: Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Emile Zola's Therese Raquin, Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, Arthur Miller's Broken Glass, Brian O'Doherty's The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P., and Pat Barker's Regeneration.

Each is a case study in detection as the hidden sources of bodily ills are uncovered in intra- or interpersonal conflicts such as guilt, family tensions, and marital discord. The book fosters a better understanding of these puzzling disorders by revealing how they function simultaneously as masks and as manifestations of inner suffering."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: Diseases in literature, Imagination in literature, Literature and mental illness, Medicine, Psychosomatic, Psychosomatic Medicine, Medicine in Literature, Psychological literature, Psychiatry in literature
LC classification: RC49 .F87 2003