Madness and the Sea : A Literary History

This book traces the origins of using sea journeys to treat mental illness, a practice recommended within the medical community through the nineteenth century. It also explores the profound consequences of such experiences on the health of writers who sought such cures as exemplified in their subsequent works. The use of sea voyages derived from the reception of Hippocratic medical treatises in the early Renaissance period that argued for the benefits of exposure to sea air and salt water for sufferers of depression and nervous disorders. Copestake traces how Western perceptions of the ocean, historically dominated by fear, were impacted by the works of writers, artists, and philosophers who took sea journeys to improve their mental health. Focusing on the Hippocratic medical discourse behind these journeys and the need for the ocean instilled by the mental health concerns of William Cowper, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, William James and Virgina Woolf in particular, he illustrates how the work that resulted from their respective associations of health with the ocean and bodies of water saw them each introduce individual modes of "oceanic thinking." The author also explores how these portrayals have positively impacted Western perceptions of the sea and our understanding of mental health up to the present day.