Under the sign of pandemic

Abstract

The present paper aims to chronologically and comparatively present the evolution of human behavior, from the first recorded pandemics to the Covid-19 pandemic. We are interested in the attribution of these infectious disease’s origin, as well as in the literary and artistic manifestations that represented these disasters. While in the Antiquity the pagan philosopher Porphyry of Tire lamented the rise of Christianity, blaming it for the appearance of the plague, in Middle Ages Europe, Christians looked for scapegoats among the religious minorities. Epidemics and pandemics also proved to be an irresistible subject for many writers; in visual arts, the Great Plague of the Middle Ages inspired the iconographic theme Danse Macabre. Today, movies deal with this topic from an apocalyptic perspective, thus marking a return to the ancient conceptions of plagues. We also find that, from the Middle Ages to the present day, the popular reactions are broadly the same, including negationism, misinformation and mistrust of authorities. Apart from questionable cures, the tendency to reject sanitary measures has also been survived, especially since social media currently provide a huge amount of right and of false information, hard to classify.