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Rezension zu Susanne Elpers: Autobiographische Spiele. Texte von Frauen der Avantgarde. Bielefeld (Aisthesis Verlag) 2008. 282 S.
Der vorliegende Band zeugt von gründlicher und fleißiger Arbeit einer Komparatistin, die ihre Dissertation durch die (in Deutschland wohl notwendige) Publikation einem breiteren Publikum zugänglich machen will.
This article discusses the function of tension in autobiographies written by eighteenth-century doctors George Cheyne, Francis Fuller, Claude Revillon, and the Viscount de Puysegur. It studies how their rhetorical strategies stir tensions in readers through the narration of their own periods of infirmity and search for a remedy. The descriptions of their recoveries offer resolution, legitimate their medical practices, and help diffuse their works. Through the staging of these reversals, the authors suggest a shift in the way the role of medical doctors was perceived as well as a fundamental change in their relationship to illness.