Luigi Lugiato's "Madmen, deranged, criminals": Dostoevsky and Italian psychiatry after Cesare Lombroso.

This essay provides an exploration of the intertwining realms of psychiatry and literature, focusing particularly on the case of Fyodor Dostoevsky. The paper gives an overview of the interest in Dostoevsky's opus and biography displayed by Italian psychiatry, in particular by Cesare Lombroso and the...

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Publicado en:Studies in East European Thought Vol. 77; no. 5; pp. 981 - 998
Autor principal: Ghidini, Maria Candida
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Oct2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Luigi Lugiato's "Madmen, deranged, criminals": Dostoevsky and Italian psychiatry after Cesare Lombroso.
      aug:
        au: Ghidini, Maria Candida
        affil: https://ror.org/02k7wn190 Dipartimento di Discipline Umanistiche, Sociali e delle Imprese Culturali (Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Industries), Università degli Studi di Parma, Parma, Italy
      su:
        Psychiatry
        Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881
        Mental illness
        Lombroso, Cesare, 1835-1909
        Genius
        Literature
        Psychiatrists
        Psychological fiction
      sug:
        subj:
          Psychiatry
          Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881
          Mental illness
          Lombroso, Cesare, 1835-1909
          Genius
          Literature
          Psychiatrists
          Psychological fiction
      keyword:
        Communication and Culture Literary Studies
        Dostoevsky
        Language
        Lombroso
        Lugiato
        Psychiatry and literature
      ab: This essay provides an exploration of the intertwining realms of psychiatry and literature, focusing particularly on the case of Fyodor Dostoevsky. The paper gives an overview of the interest in Dostoevsky's opus and biography displayed by Italian psychiatry, in particular by Cesare Lombroso and the connection he made between genius and mental illness. The essay is divided into two parts: the first, more theoretical, aims to address the question of the osmosis between psychiatry and literature, paying particular attention to the fact that, in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, this osmosis seems to have centered mainly around Dostoevsky. The first section delves into the theoretical underpinnings of this intersection, highlighting the influence of figures like Cesare Lombroso and the attraction Dostoevsky's works and biography held for psychiatrists and alienists. The second section examines Luigi Lugiato's unpublished study on Dostoevsky. Luigi Lugiato (1879-1950), an Italian psychiatrist and alienist, is a perfect example to demonstrate how decades following Lombroso's death and notwithstanding all the polemics and critiques surrounding his theories, his strong positivist paradigm continues to shape psychiatric analysis and remains influential in the European cultural panorama. The "law of contradiction", observed in Dostoevsky's works and life, permeates Lugiato's own examination of the author.
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