« Celles qu’on n’entend pas sont plus douces » Les hallucinations musicales dans la médecine et la culture au xixe siècle: Musical hallucinations in nineteenth-century medicine and culture

The historiography of musical hallucinations has hitherto focused on the origins of modern medical investigations of the subject. This has led to a view of the nineteenth century as a break in continuity in which ambivalent mystical conceptions were replaced by scientific perspectives of them as a symptom. This paper looks at the complex attitudes towards the phenomenon in the period, showing how religious, semi-scientific, romantic and medical debates allowed scope for continuing ambiguous and positive views.