In the summer of 1518, in the city of Strasbourg in the Holy Roman Empire, a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing uncontrollably in the streets. Within days, dozens joined her, and by the end of the month, hundreds were affected, dancing for days without rest, some collapsing from exhaustion or dying of heart attacks or strokes. Authorities, believing it a curse or divine punishment, hired musicians and built stages to encourage more dancing in hopes of a cure, but the epidemic faded by September. This event occurred amid widespread famine, disease, and social stress in the region. It remains one of the most documented cases of mass psychogenic illness in history.

The Dancing Plague inspired folklore of choreomania and demonic possession that influenced Romantic and Gothic literature's depictions of frenzied crowds and irrational behavior. It echoed in works exploring mass delusion and the subconscious, such as in the poetry of the Sturm und Drang movement and later surrealist writings. Poets like those in the German Romantic tradition drew on such historical hysterias to explore human vulnerability to collective mania, impacting themes in ballads and narrative poems about uncontrollable forces.