Tracing the Madness

Victoria Oftestad

As a tourist in London during the late 17th century, it was mandatory to visit the House of Bedlam, the biggest mental institution in the city. The patients, being considered completely unreasonable, were attributed animalic characteristics, which was reflected in the brutal treatment behind the bars. The ultimate mirroring of the culture of exposing madness could be found in the theatre. Composers for the theatre, in wanting to explore the inability of reason in humanity, wrote The Mad Songs, where the madness is reflected in quick shifts in emotions. These songs have been my tool to gain access to a broader palette of expression in singing. I have developed a handbook of historically informed techniques and documented my process of embodying them, using sources such as Le Brun's "Conférence (...)" (1698); Walter Charleton's "Natural History of the Passions" (1701); Aaron Hill's "The Art of Acting" (1753); and George Vandenhoff's "The Art of Elocution" (1846). My quest for madness has also become a quest for genuinity. When Charles Le Brun conveyed his theory of expression on canvas, he strongly distinguished the difference between painting tense muscles and painting genuine expression. This has become a guideline for my research: in order to gain genuinity, one has to channel a reaction and produce an impulse. This study is an attempt to bridge the gap between now and then, allowing for a deeper understanding of the Mad Songs, as well as encouraging others to dive into theatrical repertoire on its own premises.

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II. The Bedlam State of Mind

"According to Shel, it is a Bedlam"

- Mad Men, Season 2, episode 2

The other day, I was watching the American TV-series Mad Men, and suddenly, this line turned up. I started questioning whether the technological algorithms had reached a new level, but then I realized just how much the notion of Bedlam still influences the way we talk. To discover this in a series such as MadMen, I felt my pastime and academic life uniting in an unexpected blend.

II.I The House of Bedlam

The House of Bedlam reached its peak in what Foucault interprets as the “age of confinement.” The institution was established in 1247, and at that time, it was built as a priory that was dedicated to St. Mary of Bethlehem. By 1400, its purpose was to take care of people with no other resources or possibilities, but over time, Bedlam became an institution that took care of so-called “lunatics” and “mad” people. Foucault claims that this change became a manifestation of the societal changes in the attitude towards unreason: During the Renaissance, all sorts of evil, either in the form of crimes or delirium, was let “into the light of day, as public exposure gave evil the chance to redeem itself and serve as an exemplum.”¹ This changed drastically, however, in the 17th century. The classical age of confinement “felt a sense of shame before all that was inhuman that was quite unknown in the Renaissance.”² According to Foucault, this led to an institutionalisation and covering of all kinds of disturbing human individuals: criminals, poor and insane. The nature of madness was connected to scandal, and the highest goal of confinement was to avoid scandal, as “certain of evil had a power of contagion, and such scandalous force that publicity risked causing them to multiply infinitely.”³However, the culture of showing off the insane to the public didn’t change much entering the age of confinement, but rather developed, and especially in Paris and London, the House of Bedlam being the core of the movement.

The life on the inside of Bedlam could hardly have contrasted more to the palace-like facade in the late 17th century. The institution was forced to rebuild in the second half of the century, partly because of the Great Fire of London in 1666. The new building was built between 1675 and 1676 at a new location: Moorfield, and with the well-known Robert Hooke (1635-1703) as architect, the facade bore resem blance to a palace, inspired by the French court’s extravagance. Prospering from donations from visitors, the hospital encouraged people to visit the institution. Visitors would walk freely around as tourists and treat the scene as a zoological garden. It is hard to track down when this practice started, but the free walking went on until 1770, when eventually, you had to be accompanied by “a senior officer or hospital governor.”⁴ Arriving at the Bedlam after 1676, you would be welcomed by two statues, portraying mania and melancholy, guarding the gates of chaos. The building itself was praised for its spacious galleries and cells. In an attempt to avoid sexual interactions between the opposite sexes, they segregated men and women, both patients and caretakers. Observing the brutal conditions, and cage-like cells, the general impression resembled animal-like treatment of the patients. “At Bethlem, mad women were chained by the ankles to the wall of a long gallery, and had no clothing other than a sackcloth dress.”⁵ The staff would wear “blue livery, which distinguished them from the inmates.”⁶

An important observation is that the act of hiding the unreasonable on these premises didn't remove the presence of madness from the “world stage.”⁷ Behind bars and in cages, completely dehumanised, the madness became a spectacle that didn’t pose a danger to the spectators, the resemblance to the reasonable outside world being considered absent. “Madness had become a thing to be observed, no longer the monster within, but an animal moved by strange mechanisms, more beast than man, where all humanity had long since disappeared.”

To give an impression of how the obsession around madness influenced the Society of Early Modern England in general, it is interesting to take a closer look at the concept of “Bedlamite Beggars.” Even though the living conditions inside the House of Bedlam itself were brutal, being classified as an insane person and a patient of the institution, could give you enough benefits that it may be worth building your career upon. MacKinnon writes: “These beggars would have been a common sight in early modern England, so much so that numerous plays, popular ballads and poems gave them common titles of ‘Tom of Bedlam,’ ‘Mad Bessie’ and ‘Mad Maudlin,’”⁹ which are names we can recognize in the Mad Songs and in visual art from the period. In fact, by 1675, the amount of “Bedlamite Beggars” was so huge that the House of Bedlam had to take action and make a statement: Persons who pretended to be lunatics, even though they carried plates with inscriptions claiming to be under the care of Bedlam, were simply beggars, trying to benefit from a connection to the renowned institution¹⁰. In the 17th century mad world, being Bedlam-mad was considered the highest rank of madness, making one a spectacle as well as entitled to significant care.

II.II Defining Madness in the 17th Century

Through the Scope of Foucault

How could the Early Modern English Society bear to treat human beings in such a brutal manner? Foucault claims that there is a simple answer: they didn’t consider them human at all. Observing the brutal facilities behind the bars, it is clear that the treatment was carried out with no desire of curing the patients. “The notion of resipiscence is quite foreign to the whole system. What haunts the hospices is an image of bestiality. Madness here took its face from the mask of the beast.”¹¹As Donald Lupton (d. 1676) puts it:

Cer∣tainely, hee that keepes the House may be sayd to liue among wilde Creatures: It's thought many are kept here, not so much in hope of recouery, as to keepe them from further and more desperate Inconue∣niences.¹²

The mad were not considered sick, they were quite simply no longer human, and protected by their animality «from all that was fragile, precarious and delicate in man. The animal solidity of madness, and the thick skin that was inherited from the animal kingdom, was a carapace for the insane against hunger, heat, cold and pain.»¹³ This interpretation makes it possible to understand the freezing cells, minimal clothing and extreme punishment. This conception was also mirrored in the treatment of crimes against lunatics as "men who whipped lunatics to bring them to their senses were exempted from legal punishment for assault, because they were no more guilty of a crime than parents who corrected their children."¹⁴

Rather than being cured, the insane could hope to be “tamed or trained.”¹⁵“Madness was cured when it was alienated in a thing that was nothing other than its own truth.”¹⁶ In other words, the highest hope for an insane was to tame their “unchained bestiality” and become a Brute Animal, as expressed by Walter Charleton. Charleton compares the difference between the Man and the Brute to the Church Organ and an Organ played by itself/Hydraulic Organ:

“Now, to the first of these Organs you may compare a Man ; in whom the Rational Soul seems to perform the office of the Organist, while governing and directing the Animal Spirits in all their motions, she disposeth and ordereth all Faculties of the inferior, or Sensitive Soul, according to her Will and Pleasure : and so makes a kind of Harmony of Reason, Sense and Motion.

And to the other, or Hydraulic Organ you may compare a Brute, whose Sensitive Soul is being scarcely moderatrix of her self, and her Faculties, doth indeed in order to certain ends necessary to her nature, perform many trains of actions ; but such as are (like the various parts of an Harmonical Composition) regularly prescribed (as the notes of the Tunes are prick’d down) by the law of her creation, and determined for the most part to the same thing ; viz. the Conservation of herself.”¹⁷

Charleton describes a creature that is driven only by its Sensitive Soul, and thus a complete subject to its instincts. He continues:

“Manifest it is, that all Brute Animals of what kind soever, are by natural instinct alone, as by an eternal rule, or law engraven upon their Hearts, urged and directed to do all things that conduce either to their own defence and conservation, or to the propagation of their species. (…) they must all, by the dictates of the same natural instinct, both know, whatever things are convenient and beneficial, whatever are inconvenient, hurtful and destructive to them ; and according to this knowledge, prosecute these with hatred and aversation, those with love and delight.”¹⁸

Lacking the reasoning and intellect of the Rational Soul, the Brute is completely dependent on its passions. When unchained, this could lead to a violent nature, as described in The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1577-1640):"Madnesse is therefore defined to be a vehement Dotage, or raving without Fever, farre more violent then Melancholy, full of anger and clamor, horrible lookes, actions, gestures, troubling the patients with farre greater vehemency both of body and min, without all feare and sorrow, with such impetuous force and boldnesse, that sometimes three or foure men cannot hold them."¹⁹

In the 17th century worldview, an important question was the salvation of man. Then what about the salvation of madmen? According to Foucault, as God was seen as the divine creator of everything, the madman was seen as «the lowest point of humanity to which God gave his consent in the Incarnation, showing that there was no form of inhumanity in man that could not be saved.»²⁰ Overrun by the Sensitive Soul in its most extreme unreasonability, the animality becomes dangerous, but uniting soul and body in an harmonious way, the Brute can fulfill its purpose of creation:

“Cold not He [God] , when He created Brutes, so fashion and organize the various parts and members of their Bodies, thereto so adjust the finer and more active contexture of their spirituous Souls, and impress such motions upon them, as that from the union and cooperation of both, a Syndrome or conspiracy of Faculties or Powers should arise, by which they might be qualified and inabled to live, move and act respectively to the proper uses and ends of their creation? Undoubtedly He could ; and ‘tis part of my belief, that He did."²¹

Other Perspectives

Even though Foucault’s argument is a strong one, his interpretation of the 17th century’s view on madness should not be seen as the only truth. David Luck, the current archivist of the Bethlem Royal Hospital Archive, emphasized that when it comes to the 17th- and 18th-century historical sources of Bedlam, we are mainly dealing with fragments. However, among the limited sources, there is an interesting point to be made: inspecting the “Bridewell and Bedlam Court of Governors Minutes” (notes from the meetings with the people who ruled Bedlam, I will refer to them as BCGM), one can often read their concern with the patients being bullied by drunk or brutal visitors. On the 4th of September 1650, following an incident where “(...) diverse abuses are committed on the Sabboath day by young men & maids coming into the hospital of Bethlem and there idlely and profainly spending their tyme on these dayes and molesting and troubling the poore Lunatiques thorough pretence of doing them good (...),” the Court decided to make it forbidden on saturdays for “young men maids or girles or other loose or idle people” to enter the hospital²². Similar observations can be made throughout the century and into the next, right up until the decision is made to monitor and limit the visitors in 1770. Whether this decision really was a result of the board’s concern towards the patients, or a result of them finding other sources of income, we can only guess. However, the hospital simultaneously increases their minimal effort of care during this period, as well as going from referring to them as the poore Lunatiques to Patients, which all in all gives the impression that the men in charge to some degree cared for the inhabitants of Bedlam. In 1695, the Court of Governors appointed a committee to be in charge of collecting the necessary clothes to the patients in need of it, as “the Patients have suffered very much from want thereof and the Hospital been put to considerable Extraordinary charge in Phisicke and Surgerye,”²³ highlighting that the effort put in caring for the patients, more or less depended on the benefit of the economical situation. When questioned what the motivation behind exhibiting the patients were, David Luck had the theory that besides being a significant source of income, the practice was so self-evident in the society that the people in charge barely questioned it. The people who were admitted to Bedlam as patients often came from workhouses, they were the poorest of the poorest, and considering the massive gap between rich and poor at the time, the poor Lunatiques might not have experienced much better treatment outside of Bedlam than behind the bars.

Despite Bedlam being a significant tourist attraction, not everyone accepted the brutal conditions in which the patients lived, nor the inhuman treatment that was practiced. William Cowper (1731-1800) describes in a letter his conflicting experience when visiting Bedlam as a boy: “In those days when Bedlam was open to the cruel curiosity of Holiday ramblers, I have been a visitor there. Though a boy, I was not altogether insensible of the misery of the poor captives, nor destitute of feeling for them. But the Madness of some of them had such an humorous air, and displayed itself in so many whimsical freaks, that it was impossible not to be entertained, at the same time I was angry with myself for being so.”²⁴ Another visitor and writer, Thomas Tryon (1734-1703) strongly criticised the practice of allowing visitors to stay for many hours and interrogate patients to their own amusement: “First, Tis a very Undecent, Inhumane thing to make, as it were, a Show of those Unhappy Objects of Charity committed to their Care, (by exposing them, and making too perhaps of either Sexs) to the Idle Curiosity of every vain Boy, petulant Wench, or Drunken Companion, going along from one Apartment to the other, and crying out; This Woman is in for Love; That Man for Jealousie; He has Overstudied himself, and the Like.”²⁵ Sadly, the few criticising voices could not overrule an enthusiastic majority, nor penetrate a society where the fascination around madness flourished as never before, consequently, the practice continued for decades, making Bedlam a legendary institution.

On Foucault’s notion that the madmen were considered to be incurable, there are sources that oppose. At “the Old Bedlam,” meaning the institution before 1676, the patients could stay for decades. Around the middle of the 17th century, this practice changed, and the hundred pounds that the parishes provided at the hospital’s disposal on behalf of the patients didn’t cover more than around a year of “treatment.” When inspecting the Book of Admissions in the Bedlam archive concerning the years around 1700, one can find that after a year, or sometimes much shorter, the patients were either discharged, dead or had escaped²⁶. The few that stayed longer were admitted to the hospital’s department of “incurables,” which consisted of, according to David Luck, individuals that both had the necessary payment in order, and that the hospital particularly liked. Whether the discharged patients were cured or not, Luck claims that the hospital’s most optimistic predictions was a recovery rate of 50 percent. In the London Chronicle, 18th of April, 1786, a report is published that claims that Bedlam admitted 236 patients during 1785; that 221 were “cured of lunacy and discharged”; 20 were buried; and 263 were still “under cure.”²⁷ Even though, according to David Luck, these numbers are completely wrong and merely a way to show off the efficiency of the hospital, it reflects that the hospital indeed believed in recovery from madness. Another example can be found in the BCGM of 30th of March, 1677, when they discussed how to take action when money is given to the Lunatiques by visitors. The Court of Governors decides that the money shall be kept in the care of the Hospital, and given back “(...) when it shall please God such Lunatike person or persons shalbe recovered of his or their former sences(...)”²⁸and discharged from their care. But not all were believed to be within the reach of recovery. Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), although he praises Bedlam for being “a visible instance of the sense our ancestors had of the greatest unhappiness which can befall humankind,” demands for an institution that takes care of those born without a reasonable soul, beyond the reach of recovery, more commonly known as “fools, or, more properly, naturals.”²⁹ He describes the “fools”as “left by the Maker to us all, like a younger brother,” followed by a list of the required supplies in the establishment of a “fool-house.”³⁰ His distinction makes it clear that there were degrees of unreasonable behaviour, some curable and temporary, others innate and incurable.

But how could unreason develop in a human being? As discussed earlier, the 17th century philosophers believed in a clear relation between body and soul, leading to the popular belief that what you ate would infect the mental state. This relation is easy to spot when looking at the causes for Melancholia, a condition that can be compared to depression today.The following example is some of Burton’s examples of causes for the aforementioned condition: "Milke, and all that comes of milke, as Butter and Cheese, Curds, &c. increase melancholy (...) Amongst hearbs to be eaten, I finde Gourds, Cowcumbers, Coleworts, Mellons disallowed, but especially Cabbage. I causeth troublesome dreames, and sends up blacke vapours to the braine." ³¹ Burton is quite inclusive in his view on this matter, and as reasons for Melancholia, he lists: "God (...), Spirits, bad Angels, or Devils (...) Witches and Magicians (...) Stars (...) Old Age (...) Bad Diet (...) Bad Air (...)", but also "Fear (...) Anger (...)" and shockingly, coming from an educated man: "Love of Learning, or overmuch study (...) Education," and it just goes on and on³².

To distinguish the worthy and “real” lunatics from the frauds, the early Modern Englishmen had specific methods. Not being able to name your parents was the first sign of insane behavior, because it also insinuated that you weren't able to identify your position in the hierarchy that ruled in the period, nor act according to your status. Taking a closer look at the renowned physician, Richard Napier's (1559-1634) record of patients, a collection that covers from 1597-1641 (2039 cases),it is hard to imagine that anyone got away³³. Being classified as mad just from singing and dancing (31 cases) and laughing (69); or “too little talk” (68) and “too much talk” (88)³⁴, it is easy to imagine oneself a strong candidate for Bedlam.

II.III The Bedlam State of Mind

The city that met the tourists of London in the 17th century must have been quite a sight, and in many ways it was very different from the polished image that the city tries to curate today. Just the fundamental concept of prospering from showing off people with mental disabilities, is very far from what the society practices today, and seeing how dominant the practice was at the time, there is no wonder that the culture around Mad Songs and Mad Scenes developed in the theatres. The «Bedlamite humor» was a culture that was commonly understood amongst the citizens of London, also because the chaotic world behind the bars resembled the society on the outside.

Already under the rule of Charles I (1625-1649), chaos dominated and culminated in what is known as the Civil Wars (1642-1651). The king's execution in 1649 led to a power vacuum, and the reason for Oliver Cromwell's ability to take over the reign, was in fact his promise of bringing stability. Alas, chaos didn't end, and under his puritanic rule, the theatre scene of England was almost destroyed. The return of Charles II (1630-1685) from exile in 1660 promised a new order, but the process of Restoration must have been complicated for a people who had lived through a twenty years period of unpredictable circumstances. Bedlam became a state of mind - an expression that raised the question of who were really the sane, and who were the mad? As Anthony Rooley puts it: “The very name had become synonymous with a state of chaos and pandemonium, where reason and common sense were jilted for a sad representation of the external, chaotic world.”³⁵

II.IV Mad Women

How can it be that the Mad Songs generally portray women? MacDonald wrote in 1981: "All over the world today more women suffer from reported psychiatric maladies than men."³⁶. And as I am inspecting Richard Napier's (1559-1634) catalogue of patients, one observes that this indeed was the case in the 17th century as well: The connection between the amount of patients, (Napier treated 1286 female patients and 748 men) and the amount of Mad Songs portraying women, shows that it is a clear understanding that madness more easily infected women than men, and its manifestation was more violent³⁷. As the 17th century scholars were strong believers in a clear connection between body and mind, this meant that women, as physically weaker and more fragile creatures, were more easily affected and could suffer more severely from psychiatric malady as well. This violent manifestation was an object for ridicule and entertainment inside of Bedlam, and the phenomenon was so dominating that it was mirrored on the stage in the Mad Songs. The rags that the women of Bedlam wore for lack of other clothes, became the actresses’ costume in the theatre, and their diagnoses an inspiration for musical madness.

Studying Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, one understands that the medical knowledge behind the diagnoses from the 17th century was rather weak. Firstly, it was believed that the menstrual cycle had a clear connection to a woman's mental health, and though that may be true, the reasoning behind it shows a clear lack of knowledge concerning human physics: "A woman’s brain was filled with a ‘black and dark smoke’ and she was believed to ‘grow melancholy from the stoppage of her terms."³⁸ The women were in general expected to be overwhelmed by the input from the Sensitive Soul, and Batshua Makin (1600-c. 1675), England’s “Most Learned Matron”³⁹ writes in 1673: "(…) many men will tell you, they [women] are so unstable and unconstant, born down upon all occasions with such a torrent of Fear, Love, Hatred, Lust and Pride, and all manner of exorbitant Passions, that they are uncapable to practice any Vertues, that require greatness of Spirit, or firmness of Resolution."⁴⁰

The sexual appetite of women is also a subject that is encountered in these historical sources, as well as the Mad Songs. According to MacKinnon women’s “uncontrollable sexual appetites” were caused by their “feeble minds.”⁴¹ In 1616, the physician Helkiah Crooke (1576-1648) who worked at the House of Bedlam, stated that: “the imagination of lustfull women are like the imaginations of bruite beastes which have no repugnancie or contradiction of reason to restraine them.”⁴² The women’s animalistic and limitless sexual appetite made them vulnerable to sexual attention, as Anthony Rooley writes: "Bedlam was, according to popular lore of the 17th century, filled with such abject figures of femininity, and this insane sexual appetite was available to any man who took a fancy, or pity, on the poor wretches."⁴³ When interpreting Henry Purcell’s Mad Song, “Bess of Bedlam,”⁴⁴Dolly MacKinnon finds an underlying sexual tone throughout the whole song⁴⁵. In the mourning of her love, or “sexual partner” as MacKinnon suspects, Bess declares: “In yonder Cowslip lies my Dear, entomb’d in liquid Gems of Dew; (...) For since my Love is dead, and all my Joys are gone; poor Bess for his sake a Garland will make, my music shall be a Groan.”⁴⁶ Following MacKinnon’s investigations and use of A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature⁴⁷ the vivid picture transforms: “Gems” meaning “man’s genitals”⁴⁸, “Joys” being “sexual delight,”⁴⁹ “Garland” meaning “vulva,”⁵⁰ and “Groan” referring to “allusive sexual pleasure.”⁵¹ Bess also warns her fellow “Ladies”: “beware ye lest he should dart a glance that might ensnare ye.” According to the aforementioned dictionary, “dart” is a “weapon that strikes the victim down with syphilis,”⁵² and bearing in mind that syphilis often lead to mental illness when untreated, and that many victims of this disease might have resided behind the bars of Bedlam, it is not unlikely that Purcell had some of these references in mind when writing the song. At least this interpretation offers a deeper understanding of, and compassion for Mad Bess, connecting it directly to the poor Lunatiques of Bedlam.

The societal and cultural portrayal of female madness remained fairly unchanged for many centuries. The following is an example taken from Great Expectations by Dickens, written in 1861, more than two hundred years after the peak of the Mad Songs. It provides a detailed description of a woman’s “road to frenzy”:

“What did you say?” cried my sister, beginning to scream. “What did you say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me, with my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh!” Each of these exclamations was a shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; “what was the name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! Oh!”

“Ah-h-h!” growled the journeyman, between his teeth, “I’d hold you, if you was my wife. I’d hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you.”

(“I tell you, let her alone,” said Joe.)

“Oh! To hear him!” cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a scream together,—which was her next stage. “To hear the names he’s giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my husband standing by! Oh! Oh!” Here my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down,—which were the last stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete success, she made a dash at the door which I had fortunately locked.⁵³

Just as the discussion on madness in the 17th century, the scene from Dickens' Great Expectations also connects the passions and female “frenzy,” the latter more commonly known as “Hysteria.” The term is one that is historically often connected with female mental disorder:

“Hysteria is undoubtedly the first mental disorder attributable to women, accurately described in the second millennium BC, and until Freud considered it an exclusively female disease. Over 4000 years of history, this disease was considered from two perspectives: scientific and demonological. It was cured with herbs, sex or sexual abstinence, punished and purified with fire for its association with sorcery and finally, clinically studied as a disease and treated with innovative therapies.”⁵⁴

Even though I have yet to encounter this word in the genre of Mad Songs, I believe its meaning corresponds to the perception of female madness that laid the base of the Mad Songs from the late 17th century. Mad Bess enters Bedlam from “silent Shades and the Elizium groves,”⁵⁵ “Elizium” meaning “sexual ecstacy"⁵⁶ to “cure her Lovesick Melancholy,”⁵⁷ “cure” being “copulation (abstinence being traditionally conceived as a source of physiological disorder),”⁵⁸ which, if one sticks to MacKinnon’s interpretation, connects Bess’ treatment, as well as diagnosis, to her female sexuality. When the portrayed character in the Mad Song "Restless in thought"⁵⁹ (the Mad Song I will use later in the exposition), sings about her "fluttering soul on fire," there is no mistake she is alluding to the ecstasy provoked in her by her lover, as "fire" means "flames of passion,"⁶⁰ and an involvement of the soul in this context indicates sexual pleasure, and most likely orgasm⁶¹. The theatrical representation of being in love as a woman in the 17th century, as shown in the Mad Songs, uncovers an underlying fear of being possessed by passion. There is no coincidence that the Mad Songs most often portrayed women going mad from love, as it seems that the contemporary society nourished the belief that a large group of the patients in Bedlam shared this fate.

Footnotes:

1: Foucault 2006, part one, V, p. 142.

2: ibid,p. 143.

3: ibid, p. 142.

4: Chambers 2024.

5: Foucault 2006, p. 146.

6: MacKinnon 2000, p. 144.

7: Foucault 2006, p. 144.

8: ibid, p. 145.

9: MacKinnon 2000, p. 136.

10: "Whereas several vagrant persons do wander about the City of London and Countries, pretending themselves to be lunaticks, under cure in the Hospital of Bethlem commonly called Bedlam, with brass plates about their arms, and inscription thereon. These are to give notice, that there is no such liberty given to any patients kept in the said Hospital for their cure, neither is any such plate as a distinction or mark put upon a lunatick during their time of being there, or when discharged thence. And that the same is a false pretence to colour their wandering and begging, and to deceive the people, to the dishonour of the government of that Hospital."Tuke 1882, p. 66.

11: Foucault 2006, p. 147

12: Lupton 1632, p. 77.

13: Foucault 2006, p. 148.

14: MacDonald 1981, pp. 195-6.

15: Foucault 2006, p. 149.

16: ibid, p. 150.

17: Charleton 1701, p. 37-38 art. 16: An enquiry concerning the Knowledge whereby Brutes are directed in actions voluntary.

18: ibid, p. 41-42, art: 18. That Brutes are directed only by natural instinct, in all actions that conduce either their own preservation, or to the propagation of their sprecies not by Reason.

19: Democritus Junior 1638 , p. 9.

20: Foucault 2006, p. 154.

21: Charleton 1701, p. 36, art. 16. an Enquiry concerning the Knowledge whereby Brutes are directed in actions voluntary.

22: Bridewell and Bethlem Court of Governors 1650, 4. september, pp. 462-3, transcribed in: Andrews 1996, p. 2.

23: Bridewell and Bethlem Court of Governors 1701, 29. November, p. 16, transcr.:Andrews 1996 p. 11.

24: Cowper 1835, letter dated 19 July 1784, vol. ii, p .289.

25: Tryon 1689, 2nd edn, pp. 289-293.

26: Bethlem Royal Hospital 1715.

27: Anonymous 1786. I was shown this article during my visit to Bethlem.

28: Bridewell and Bethlem Court of Governors 1701, 30th march 1677, p.358, transcribed in:Andrews 1996, p. 9.

29: Defoe 1697, p. 179.

30: ibid.