El adulterio como síntoma: narrativas de la histeria en las novelas decimonónicas

Abstract

Hysteria, removed from psychiatric manuals and traditionally a mystery to experts, has evolved to be understood as a manifestation of excessive female emotionality and sexuality. Figures like Freud refocused it towards mental health, adding psychological dimensions and distancing it from mysticism. This article proposes a review of hysteria in adultery novels from the second half of the nineteenth century to highlight how literature has reflected and perpetuated the stigma of this disease in women, using protagonists from La Regenta, Vilaniu, El primo Basílio, Cécile and Effi Bries as examples. With a theoretical framework drawn from feminist literary criticism and comparative literature, the social tensions of the time have been analyzed as they materialize in hysterical symptomatology and in female sexuality.