The Role of “Spectacle” in Foucault’s Methodology: Madness, Torture, Anatomy

Extended Abstract
 
Introduction and Objectives: In pre-modern Europe, the daily rhythm of life was often punctuated by various public spectacles. The term “spectacle” (derived from the Latin specto, meaning “to look at”) refers to any carefully orchestrated or arranged display, typically of a public nature and often on a grand scale. Such events, whether performances or exhibitions, are designed to captivate the audience—essentially, they are visual phenomena, or performances created primarily for the purpose of being seen. Spectacles serve as public demonstrations of a society’s core values and symbols, providing a window into its cultural and emotional life.
The significance of a spectacle lies in its ability to reflect elements that are central to the collective identity of the audience. The more these elements resonate with the public’s values, the more impactful the spectacle becomes. While spectacles share some characteristics with theatre, such as the necessity of an audience, they differ in terms of their focus. Spectacles prioritize visual stimuli and symbolic codes, offering a more immediate, sensory experience, whereas theatre typically emphasizes narrative and performance. In essence, spectacles are crafted to be seen, not just understood.
In each of Foucault’s historical trilogies—The History of Madness (1961), The Birth of the Clinic (1963), and Discipline and Punish (1975)—he dedicates chapters to exploring pre-modern perceptions of madness, punishment, torture, and illness. In both The History of Madness and Discipline and Punish, Foucault places particular emphasis on the “spectacle” of madness and torture, events that were central to the public consciousness during the Renaissance and the Classical era. Through these analyses, he seeks to understand how people in those periods experienced and interpreted madness and torture. Thus, the depiction of these spectacles plays a crucial role in Foucault’s methodological approach in these works.
In The History of Madness, Foucault examines the concept of madness in the pre-modern era, arguing that the “spectacle” of madness—from the Middle Ages through the Classical era—was a deeply ingrained tradition. He explores how madness was perceived in various ways, emphasizing that one prevalent view in the 17th century was that the insane were treated as if they were animals. The insane asylum, Foucault suggests, functioned like a public zoo, where spectators would come to observe the mentally ill. In these settings, the insane were often subjected to cruel treatment, including being forced to dance or perform like circus animals, sometimes through the use of whips. In this way, the “spectacle” of madness became a form of public entertainment, meant to amuse and astonish the crowd.
Foucault argues that, in this context, madness became reduced to mere spectacle, transforming the mad into objects of observation and contemplation. The mad individuals were cast as the performers in a spectacle for the entertainment of the sane. The act of observing them, however, had a unique characteristic: it did not fundamentally engage with the madman as a person. Instead, the focus remained on their outward appearance and perceived animalistic behavior, which were framed as the primary features of the spectacle. The observation of madness in these public performances had two key aspects:
First, just as watching animals in a cage or circus is limited to observing their outward appearance and movements, observing the mad was similarly restricted to the surface level. The goal was not to understand or heal the mad; rather, it was to watch their intensified movements and actions as part of the spectacle. The observation was, in essence, a form of passive entertainment.
Second, the spectators’ engagement with the mad also carried a reflective quality. By watching the mad perform, the sane were reminded that they, too, might one day face the same fate. In this way, the madman served as a mirror, reflecting the fragile boundary between sanity and madness. The spectacle, then, was not just a passive observation but a subtle reminder of the possibility that anyone might fall victim to madness at any time. It was, in a sense, a cautionary lesson that reinforced the precariousness of the human condition.
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault begins with a structure reminiscent of a play, unfolding in two episodes. The first episode depicts a brutal public torture in the sixteenth century, while the second contrasts this with a day in a modern prison. In the first episode, Foucault provides a detailed account of the torture of Damien, who was punished for the crime of attempting to assassinate the king. He describes how Damien’s mutilated, dismembered, and scarred body was put on public display, underscoring how torture in the premodern period functioned as a spectacle. This spectacle, Foucault argues, not only marked the victim but also showcased the power of the authority inflicting the punishment.
In contrast, The Birth of the Clinic does not address the concept of spectacle. Instead, this book focuses on the transition from humoral medicine to modern clinical medicine. In the early chapters, Foucault explores the concepts of illness, diagnosis, and treatment in the context of humoral medicine. Later, he examines how, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, physicians adopted an empirical approach, seeking to locate diseases in the body’s physical lesions by conducting dissections. Foucault asserts that while anatomy was studied in the premodern period, there was no connection between anatomical knowledge and the pathology of diseases within the framework of humoral medicine.
Although The Birth of the Clinic could have begun with a “spectacle” of dissection, much like the other two books in Foucault’s historical trilogy, it does not. One such spectacle that could have been included is the “theatre of public anatomy,” which was common in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Sponsored by universities, municipalities, the government, and the church, these public dissections attracted not only physicians and medical students but also laypeople, who could attend for a fee. However, Foucault chooses not to emphasize this event, which was occasionally held several times a year.
Had Foucault chosen to begin The Birth of the Clinic with the theatre of public anatomy, it would have aligned with his method of narrating the premodern period through the description of spectacles, as seen in The History of Madness and Discipline and Punish. In this article, we aim to highlight Foucault’s method in these two books and explore how the spectacle of dissection might have contributed to understanding the premodern perception of anatomy and dissection. We will examine the nature of the theatre of public anatomy to show how, had it been included in the early chapters of The Birth of the Clinic, it could have presented a theatrical narrative of premodern medical perceptions. This would have allowed readers to better understand how, prior to the development of modern medicine in the nineteenth century, the practice of anatomy and dissection was performed publicly and legally, yet had little impact on the pathology of diseases as understood in humoral medicine—an idea that often lingers in the reader’s mind while engaging with the text.