Love and madness
A thematic connection between love and psychological breakdown or madness, presenting love as potentially destabilising, obsessive, or psychologically damaging. Love-induced madness appears across literary periods.
Real World
In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, love-induced irrationality is played for comedy, while in King Lear, Lear's emotional breakdown has been compared by psychologists to the destabilising grief of profound loss.
Exam Focus
Distinguish whether love-madness is presented sympathetically or satirically — tone and narrative perspective are your key evidence.
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