The Drama of Hysteria

Abstract

The Drama of Hysteria stages a phenomenon for which both medical research and cultural criticism have offered contradictory definitions and assessments: hysteria is multiple, it is uniform; hysteria does not exist; it is a disease, a disposition, or a simulation; it is true and false, organic and mental (Wajeman 2003: n. pag.). Observing that both the medical concepts and the symptoms of hysteria have always adapted to the prevailing ideas and mores in a given historical, social, and cultural context, critics note “the extreme, almost obscene interpretability” (Micale 1995: 103) of the “chameleon” hysteria (Mentzos 2000 [1991]: 13). Not only is hysteria modelled ‘stylistically’ on its surrounding culture, but it might also be a consequence of the tensions, conflicts and crises of a specific culture, as Stavros Mentzos and others have argued (Bronfen 1998b, Mentzos 2000 [1991], Roudinesco 2001).