Thomas Bell, Psyd <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Use of "I" and 'we' appears to heve real life effects. a study to be
published in _Psychosomatic Medicine analyzed the use of these terms in
poetry written by poets who committed suicide compared to poets who
didn't. .....
This risks to sound a kind of creepy and criptic suggestion to those
who do insist writing using the "I".
Nevertheless the attitude has some more eminent predecessors, i.e.
Leopardi's correspondent and closest friend, who was showered with
confessional letter of anguish and despair from Leopardi about the misery
of his life and his will to refuse suffering and put an end to his
disconsolate world. The friend/confident in question, who was also a deep
admirer of Leopardi and would always have the privilege to read Leopardi's
ode long before they would be published, one day, tired to tears of his
genial friend's obsession with this "unhappy I", wrote to him: "I do now
see that the reasons and primary sources of despair are irremediable. I
completely support your view that life is not worth living and I therefore
do understand why you can no longer cope with it. You have all my support
in whatever the outcome of such a hopeless despair of yours will be.
Struggle no more, it is a pain for me to see you in these dead-end alley..."
As a result of the compassionate (!!!) response he manage to finally
solicit in his friend with his many letters and poems about live's unworthy
nature, Leopardi recorded in a diary a page of dismay in which he accused
is friend of having almost suggested to put an end to his suffering for
EVER." In effect, Leopardi loved life, women and passion, and he especially
adored eating ice creams (these were indeed the cause of his death, in
Naples, when he finally managed to get there and eat an immense and fatal
amount of vanilla and chocolate sorbettos.
You see, dear Thomas, those who use the "I" as a lyric personas, might want
to do it for reasons other than interpreting their "self", maybe to speak
up, from a personal perspective, the human condition without assuming
necessarily the role of spokesmen.
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