Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: King Lear

  • Nikolai Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) was a member of the first wave of great Russian authors of the nineteenth century. Born in a Ukrainian Cossack village then part of the Russian Empire, he made his way to Saint Petersburg where he found his métier in the short…

  • Manifestations of madness in King Lear

    Anoushka SinhaNew York, United States In his satirical masterpiece The Praise of Folly, the influential Dutch humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam attributes a Janus-like quality to madness, which he describes as two divergent manifestations: “one that which the Furies bring from hell” and “another…that proceeds from Folly.”1 Given the essay’s encomiastic title, it should come as…