A fool's paradise

The dissertation is a study of a lost fonn of sensibility, Gemütlichkeit, which flourished in 19th century Gennany and was, by all accounts, feIt most acutely in the Biedermeier period. This sensibility was generated by the operations ofthe Gemüth, a "soul-orga~" taken by those who believed in its influenee to be both mental and physical as weIl as individual and colleetive. The coneeptual and phenomenal framework which structured experiences of Gemüth is unearthed from the history ofpsychiatric practice in the southern Gerrnan asylum Illenau during the period 1842-1889. This institution fumishes a vivid demonstration of that framework because its practitioners held mental illnesses to be, literally "illnesses ofthe Gemüth 1} (Gemüthskrankheiten). Consequently, they geared their treatment methods towards observing, regulating, al).d cajoling the afflicted organ. At Illenau the medication to be administered to patients was experience itself and the asylum was arranged around a phannaeology of experience in which every ward constituted aseparate world. The physieian's task was to move patients between wards according to their shifting psychiatrie needs, a skill that depended most crucially on timing (Takt). Much of the theSl$ is devoted to reconstructing the phenomenology of asylum life from the organizatio~ ofspace, through its landscape and architecture, and of time, through the use ofmusie"and gymnastics. The relationship between Gemüth and sexuality is explored with respect to Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis (1877), a text informed by, yet at odds with, the culture of Gemüth at Illenau where its author trained for five years, 1864-1869. The research for this study is based on medical publications by Illenau physicians and other members of staff, such as asylum chaplains, music instructors and gymnastics teachers, on an asylumjoumal called the Illenau Weekly (1867-1896) and on the Illenau patient records.