Hi Candice, (my hair has since thawed!)
yes, I do know of Ian Buchanan through the University, he was teaching there
while I was researching the patient protest literature of John Perceval and
Daniel Schreber.
On another thread, during that research, I came across "A Social History of
Madness ~ stories of the insane" by Roy Porter ~ an invaluable resource for
anyone interested in the subject of serious mental illness and creativity.
There is a section dealing sensitively with William Cowper ~ his poetry, his
insanity, his suicide attempts, suffering and religious madness.
For Cowper, who suffered serious illness throughout his life, the battle
with suicide took the form of a religious dilemma - driven in desparation to
attempt suicide several times ~ suicide itself became his torment.
During my research I came across a Tasmanian poet and psychiatrist who
believed he could identify elements of what he called "thought disordered"
writing (at the time, he was working towards a theory which identified
particular patterns of grammatical construction in the writing and poetry of
psychiatric patients which distinguished "thought disordered" writing from
"creative" writing.)
If such studies as the ones cited on this list are accurate and can
potentially be used as a diagnostic tool for identifying a potential suicide
~ that raises a compelling moral question.
If in certain cases poems may be read as suicide notes, then what moral
responsibility do we as readers or publishers have to act on those
indicators of serious mental illness ~ to actually help the person that is
clearly suffering?
According to Porter,
"Never does Cowper entertain the slightest fantasy that madness confers on
him great poetic powers. He wrote to keep his madness away."
Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution,
Wait, with impatient readiness, to seize my
Soul in a moment.
Damn'd below Judas: more abhorr'd than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his Holy Master.
Twice betrayed Jesus me, the last delinquent,
Deems the profanest.
Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore hell keeps her ever hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.
Hard lot! encompass'd with a thousand dangers;
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors;
I'm called, if vanquish'd, to receive a sentence
Worse than Abiraim's.
Him the vindictive rod of angry justice
Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong;
I, fed with judgement, in a fleshy tomb, am
Buried above ground.
"Lines Written During a Period of Insanity", Cowper, 1774.
Obscurest night involved the sky
Th'Atlantic billows roar'd
When such a destined wretch as I
Wash'd headlong from on board
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home forever left...
No voice divine the storm allay'd
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perished, each alone;
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulphs than he.
from "The Cast Away", 1799
maria
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