문헌을 통해 본 무도광(Dancing Mania)과 타란티즘(Tarantism)에 대한 비교연구 = The Comparison of Dancing Mania and Tarantism

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study is to compare dancing mania and tarantism that were very popular in the Middle Ages and spread throughout much of Europe. Since the terms tarantism and dancing mania were often used interchangeably since they shared overlapping features, many researchers such as psychiatrists and medical historians have studied on the relations of the two. Among them, Robert Bartholomew, who researched deeply and extensively about chorea, stated that tarantism was an Italian variant of dancing mania. Dancing mania and tarantism had many similarities especially in terms of the characteristics of the collective dancing procession so that the two can be confused as the same type of chorea: for example, that most of those affected were females, that the participants experienced a strange complex of symptoms such as mass hysterical disorders and frenetic dancing, and that music and dance were the potent and effective remedy. However, dancing mania and tarantism had distinct differences in the purpose or meaning of the dance, their forms and elements of the procession, and their outbreak area. Furthermore, the dance frenzy in dancing mania was considered even as a cathartic response caused by the psychological and social stresses of the period while that in tarantism was considered as the only cure to supposedly dissipate the poison of the victims who were bitten by the tarantula spider. There was also religious elements present in the procession rite of dancing mania that did not appear in that of tarantism. Therefore, dancing mania and tarantism should be clearly classified according to their differences as tarantism was totally confined to Apulia, a region of southeastern Italy. Eventually, the dance in the Middle Ages became to be suppressed due to the common features of dancing mania and tarantism similar to ancient Greek orgiastic rites.