Szał w epoce rozsądku, czyli o tym, jak wielcy prozaicy XIX wieku używali słowa szał i wyrazów pokrewnych słowotwórczo

The text employs statistical and semantic analysis to study the use of selected words related to the mental sphere. The analysis focuses on words representing the derivational family of the noun szał ‘frenzy, madness’ in the works of three authors from the second half of the 19th century: Eliza Orzeszkowa, Henryk Sienkiewicz, and Bolesław Prus. For each of the authors, four novels were selected, with word frequencies and meanings closely related to the themes of the texts. Only in two of them do the words in question allude to mental disorders, while in the others they refer, among other things, to love, fighting, and playing, often with positive connotations. Their semantics is fuzzier than today; the authors of that time apparently tended to perceive human behaviour and psyche in terms of a certain continuum.