Much Madness is Divinest Sense, which gets its title from the famous Dickinson poem, is, says
Greider, "a gateway into the poignancy and self-power of the widespread struggle with madness
and other forms of emotional anguish." She believes that those who produce accounts of their
struggle with "madness" or mental illness of various types, whether in themselves or someone
they love, assert on the basis of their experience that there is sometimes "divinest sense" in madness - something of ultimate value. This book respectfully engages that assertion and seeks
to understand it.
"Soul-suffering" denotes our intent to focus on the most profound aspects of psychic life and on
spiritual issues related to it - questions of ultimate meanings and values that psychic turmoil commonly precipitates. Where they are raised by our memoirists, we will touch on the beliefs
and practices of a specific religious tradition.
