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Jason Kuznicki points the readers of Cliopatria to a"fascinating historical brainteaser" from a pair of psychiatrists. It comes with a $1,000 reward for anyone who can solve it:
Our research suggests that the concept of “repressed memory” or “dissociative amnesia” might be simply a romantic notion dating from the 1800s, rather than a scientifically valid phenomenon. To test this hypothesis, we are offering a reward of $1000 to the first person who can find a description of “repressed memory” in any written work, either nonfiction or fiction (novels, poems, dramas, epics, the Bible, essays, medical treatises, or any other sources), in English or in any work that has been translated into English, prior to 1800. We would argue that if “repressed memory” were a genuine natural phenomenon that has always affected people, then someone, somewhere, in the thousands of years prior to 1800, would have witnessed it and portrayed it in a non-fictional work or in a fictional character.
Jason suggests looking in the writings of the Marquis de Sade and the records of witchraft trials. Shakespeare might also be a fruitful source to mine. I seem to remember Henry V repressing his memories of a riotous youth with Falstaff, but don't trust me on this as I've largely repressed my memories of reading Henry IV, and I could be remembering Kenneth Branagh's interpretation of Henry V rather than the play itself.
A larger question that Cliopatria's readers might be able to address is a question that is begged by this contest: can we really mine history for evidence of clinical conditions that have only been identified in modern times? It's a question that's also been raised by recent debates on Joshua Wolf Shenk's contention that Lincoln was clinically depressed. The other unspoken assumption, it seems to me, of this contest is that a historical description of a physiological or psychological condition is enough to prove that it is a"natural phenomenon." Not sure that I'm sure about that.
With all due respect, the problem lies not only in finding examples of the issue, but in finding diagnosticians who were even looking for such a phenomenon.
To turn the logic a tiny bit, we have plenty of literature to suggest that demon possession is real, if we choose to accept it. By the same logic that you are attempting to use, we can find plenty of descriptions throughout virtually every civilization over virtually all written history. Yet I wouldn't exactly bet on the APA deciding that demon possession was a verifiable illness.
More intriguing is the work done during WWI and WWII around the issue of "shell-shock" and traumatic amnesia, over a period of time. It was found that, on occasion, a soldier would not remember anything from a particular incident, only to retrieve it many months and even years afterwards, and to have that memory retrieved with enough accuracy as to be verifiable.
The problem with the issue of repressed memory and DID is that it has become a politicized discussion. Repression, dissociation, and DID can be approximated by using hypnosis, but that assumes that an external influence is the only way that they are created. It is much like saying that nuclear reactions take place only by the action of a guided hand, since that's how one was started in a lab, while ignoring the sun burning outside a window.
Andrew D. Todd -
3/24/2006
I don't know that the following example is exactly repressed memory, but it is an interesting psychological state. I found this in Joanot Martorell's _Tirant Lo Blanco_ (c. 1460). I should state that I am relying on a translation (David H. Rosenthal, 1984, ch. 189-202), as I do not have the Spanish, let alone the Catalan. Martorell had been to England, circa 1438. This apparently exposed him to Arthurian and Anglo-Norman literary material, which he later synthesized with the historical figure of the early fourteenth-century renegade Templar and mercenary captain Roger Flor (Rutiger Von Blum). At any rate, the relevant episode is as follows:
Queen Morgan Le Fay arrives at the Greek court, searching for her brother, King Arthur. The Greek Emperor reveals to Morgan Le Fay that he has a captive, whose name he is unable to learn, but whose sword is named Excalibur, and who is attended by a knight named Brennis Saunce Pite. The queen asks to be taken to him, and the captive, whom she recognizes as King Arthur, is discovered inside a silver cage, sitting with his sword on his knees, staring dully down at it. The queen speaks to him, but he does not answer. The knight, however, recognizes her, and comes to kiss her hand. King Arthur suddenly starts delivering a lecture on the theory of chivalry, and answers questions from the audience. At length the Emperor takes King Arthur's sword away, and he falls silent. King Arthur then neither sees or recognizes anyone. Morgan Le Fay takes a ruby from her finger, and passes it in front of his eyes, whereupon he suddenly awakens, in a normal mental state, and goes off to dinner with the company. He then returns with his sister to her ship, and they sail away together.
I think the evidence would support that, even allowing for translator bias, Martorell had a working knowledge of hypnosis.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/24/2006
I think that your "devil's advocate" interrogation of the question is well justified. But it also seems to me that if "repressed memory" is a human phenomenon, rather than just a modern one, we should look to find examples of it, not only in western literature and history, but in near eastern, south Asian, and far eastern history and literature, as well.
Caleb McDaniel -
3/23/2006
Thanks for those suggestions. When I read the discussion thread at Google Answers, it clarified some of my reservations about the question itself. Pope seems to be placing a lot of emphasis on the fact that you only begin to find references to "repressed memory" in nineteenth-century literature like the novels of Kipling or the poetry of Dickinson. But couldn't this simply be tracking a change in the content and concerns of literature, rather than marking the discovery or invention of a scientific phenomenon? Could this have to do with literature becoming more realistic and introspective in the nineteenth century, or with views of the human body and mind becoming more mechanistic and susceptible to detailed investigation?
I guess I'm playing the devil's advocate to put pressure on the premise that if "repressed memory" were a real phenomenon, then surely there would be some mention of it in the world's literature. That doesn't follow necessarily. I agree, however, that the counterfactual does have some intuitive force. There definitely seem to be times in pre-1800 historical literature when an author or authors could have used a concept like "repressed memory" and did not. At the beginning of the Aeneid, for instance, when Father Aeneas recalls witnessing the traumatic fall of Troy (a "sorrow too deep to tell") he tells his story with a heavy heart, "however I may shudder at the memory / and shrink again in grief." He shudders at the memory, but he clearly has the memory.
Nonetheless, does this fact tell us anything about whether Virgil and his contemporaries had an understanding of "repressed memory," or simply that they lacked the conceptual apparatus to articulate such an understanding, or simply that the dictates of literary form were different. After all, Father Aeneas had to remember the fall of Troy or else Virgil would have been robbed of the literary conceit he needed to retell the fall himself.
Caleb, I agree with Jason and you that this is a fascinating question -- so much so that I sent it out as a query to three of the Cliopatricians who know more about pre-1800 sources than some of the rest of us -- and got no takers. There is an interesting discussion of it here.
Manan Ahmed -
3/23/2006
One could certainly start here: Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities by Wendy Doniger. Also, her most recent Bedtrick has a wonderful tale of repressed memory.
