Posted by Racer on April 6, 2006, at 1:40:34
In reply to Re: $1000 pre-1800 repressed memory prize » special_k, posted by special_k on April 5, 2006, at 23:30:59
What you say is true, up to a point, but I think this is a very interesting line of research. Literature is one of the purist forms of contemporary social history, and concepts such as repressed memory would likely have shown up in literature if it was occurring. The fact that they haven't found evidence of repressed memory or selective amnesia in literature prior to 1800 might be quite quite telling.
On the other hand, cultural changes will also be likely to create changes in the expression of psychopathology. Think about the changes in Anorexia Nervosa of the centuries (and even millenia). It is possible that repressed memories were present in earlier times, but RECOVERED memories were not. Or that those who recovered memories of repressed past trauma were then treated for mental illness -- which was not quite such a pleasant process as it can be for us, these days.
Very likely, because prior to 1800 most people were preoccupied by the struggle to meet their more basic needs, no one much cared whether or not they remembered past trauma. They were often faced with ongoing trauma, and the lives of the great majority of people at that time were largely spent working. Literacy was still rare enough that most people would not have been able to record their experiences, and those who were literate might have been rather sheltered from such experiences. Or not.
Literature of the period prior to about 1750 was also very, very strongly structured according to traditions. The English Novel really only appeared about then. (Actually, the first published piece of literature in English which we might recognize as a novel was published in 1688, but it's more a play with very few stage directions.) Earlier works were more picaresque narrative than anything we find nowadays. There's no room in that tradition for repressed or recovered memories, really. Nor is it a subject that would come up in most lyics or dramas...
Although, at the same time I say that, I also think about some dramatic possibilities of repressed memories, so I'm probably wrong about that...
Anyway, although you're right -- absence of evidence and all that -- I still think there's a good chance that repressed memories are a fairly recent development. Whether that's because they only developed with the rise of the Industrial world, or because they are a Romantic construct I can't say. But I find the question very interesting...
poster:Racer
thread:629255
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060325/msgs/629515.html