The starting point of this course is Plato's estimation of mania in Phaedrus, as the gift of the gods that allows the human mind to exceed perception and enter a new relationship with signs and meaning, with the self and others, with passion and rationality. The course will focus on works in German literature that test this estimation, pushing the limits of rationality, and in doing so testing the limits of language. We will be reading works by authors suffering from mental illness, and those using madness as way of experimenting with truth and reason. Works may include Herder, Goethe, Lenz, Kleist, Hölderlin, Hoffmann, Büchner, Canetti, Dürrenmatt, Weiss, and others.