[Seeing the insane: MacKenzie, Kleist, William James].

Abstract

Using texts by the late 18th century Scottish writer Henry MacKenzie, the German Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist, and the American psychologist William James, the use of visual models for the perception of the insane is illustrated. In the latter two cases, the seeming hallucinatory nature of the texts is shown to have had its roots in visual models.