On Maupassant’s madness: “Le Horla” as a case study

Abstract

On January 1th 1892, Guy de Maupassant attempts suicide in his house in Cannes with a paper knife after trying to shoot himself in the temple because his waiter, François Tassart, had previously removed the gunpowder from the weapon after noticing some anomalous behavior of the writer. The decision to take Maupassant to Paris and subject him to the treatment of Dr Émile Blanche is almost immediate, the day after his entry into the nursing home of Passy the news reach the main French newspapers giving rise to a real debate on the nature of his madness, on its possible causes and on the clues that could be found in his literary works. This contribution aims at a reconstruction of this debate in France in the years of his internment (1892-1893) and at an investigation of medical studies that during the 20th century continued to describe Maupassant’s clinical profile making one of the author’s most famous short stories, Le Horla, a real clinical document. Through the analysis of this specific case we want to propose some considerations on the medical use of literary forms in the last years of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th.