Appunti sull’immaginario dei nervi e il corpo scenico ottocentesco

The essay explores the imaginary of the body as a nervous/neurotic one by questioning nineteenth-century psychological, medical, and paramedical culture. The author shall take into account theoretical writings by Mesmer, Charcot, and other Italian psychologists living in the late Nineteenth Century and shall dwell on the relationship between such an imaginary and the ways theatrical critics described young Eleonora Duse’s body on the stage.