Dickinson H
University of Greenwich, Avery Hill Campus, Eltham, London SE9 2UG, UK.
Hist Psychiatry. 2000 Sep;11(43 Pt 3):291-309. doi: 10.1177/0957154X0001104304.
Portrayals of characters with an intellectual impairment in nineteenth-century prose fiction are analyzed. In the earlier works idiocy is imprecisely differentiated from madness or eccentricity and the characters are mostly shown as socially and psychologically marginal and 'other'. In the later works a greater naturalism and a more precise notion of idiocy as a distinct condition is evident. Literary depiction of intellectual impairment or idiocy occurs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but as an abstract condition; interest in the lives and personalities of people with an intellectual impairment is new to the nineteenth century. This, it is argued, is connected with a developing interest in ordinary people. The portrayals in the selected works are related to changing medical perspectives on idiocy and how it should be treated during the period, in particular to the publicizing during the eighteen forties of the view that idiocy could be ameliorated through education.
本文分析了19世纪散文小说中对智力障碍人物的描绘。在早期作品中，白痴与疯狂或怪癖的区分并不精确，这些人物大多被描绘为社会和心理上的边缘人以及“异类”。在后期作品中，更明显地体现出了更大的自然主义以及将白痴视为一种独特状况的更精确概念。对智力障碍或白痴的文学描绘在17和18世纪就已出现，但只是作为一种抽象状况；对智力障碍者的生活和个性的关注在19世纪才是新的。有人认为，这与对普通人日益增长的兴趣有关。所选作品中的描绘与该时期对白痴及其治疗方式不断变化的医学观点有关，特别是与19世纪40年代宣扬的白痴可通过教育得到改善的观点有关。
