[Genesis of melancholy: Adam's figure and its reinterpretation on the 16th and 17th centuries]

This study of different figures of amorous transport through numerous 17th-century works, in particular Jacques Ferrand's treatise, emphasises how the genesis of melancholy is closely linked to Genesis. Every lover is a new Adam. Lost in the other and hallucinating, the melancholic is as if transported, and in his melancholy delirium images seem flesh and blood. The loss of his centre of gravity means that he is in danger of losing his unity and the very status of the species he belongs to, his body being on the verge of becoming a corpse. In this state it seems that the only way of staying alive is to write, as the body embodies the disease.