Struggle of the soul: language against madness in the 17th century

LINGUAGEM CONTRA A LOUCURA DO SÉCULO XVII

Abstract

ABSTRACT:

This article deals with madness as a subject of important reports in literate texts: psychomachy or the struggle of the soul, understood as the struggle of the rationality of the soul against the effects of detachment from reason. The article makes a brief theoretical foray into the understanding of madness based on studies by Michel Foucauld, and then presents the Portuguese poet Antonio Serrão de Crasto (1613 or 1614 – 1685) as the author of a struggle of the soul in poetry, thought while he was imprisoned in the Court of the Holy Office in Lisbon in the 17th century: The rats of the Inquisition.  Based on the understanding of allegories, the prisoner's satirical poem is studied as an imitation of other struggles for virtue, such as the book Psychomachia, by Prudentius (405 AD), whose central theme is the Christian war between virtue and vice. In the Portuguese poem, the metaphor of animal plague is extended beyond the subject of prison and affects tax collectors, an aspect through which the satire is expanded to the universe of reformed Catholic society in Portugal. The poem exposes the arbitrary nature of prison, and highlights the repressive action that has its origins in very complex issues, such as anti-Semitism, political and religious censorship, the hatred of the aristocracy against the bourgeoisie and even the literate status of satirical poetry, since Crasto was a man of letters whose satirist character permeated the reception of his texts, including those practiced as a member of the Lisbon Singular Academy.