Methodologically Speaking, The Rejection By [john] Boswell

Man Is A Thinking Being. The Way He Thinks Is Related To Society, Politics, Economics, And History And Is Also Related To Very General And Universal Categories And Formal Structures. But Thought Is Something Other Than Societal Relations.

The Imaginary Is Not Formed In Opposition To Reality As Its Denial Or Compensation; It Grows Among Signs, From Book To Book, In The Interstice Of Repetitions And Commentaries; It Is Born And Takes Shape In The Interval Between Books. It Is The Phenomena Of The Library.

In The Renaissance, Madness Was Present Everywhere And Mingled With Every Experience By Its Images Or Its Dangers. During The Classical Period, Madness Was Shown, But On The Other Side Of Bars; If Present, It Was At A Distance, Under The Eyes Of A Reason That No Longer Felt Any Relation To It And That Would Not Compromise Itself By Too Close A Resemblance. Madness Had Become A Thing To Look At: No Longer A Monster Inside Oneself, But An Animal With Strange Mechanisms, A Bestiality From Which Man Had Long Since Been Suppressed.

Do Not Ask Who I Am And Do Not Ask Me To Remain The Same.

Methodologically Speaking, The Rejection By [john] Boswell Of The Categorical Opposition Between Homosexual And Heterosexual, Which Plays Such A Significant Role In The Way Our Culture Conceives Of Homosexuality, Represents An Advance Not Only In Scholarship But In Cultural Criticism As Well.