[Waking in the Blue: The representation and the role of the psychiatric disorder in Robert Lowell's confessional poetry].

BACKGROUND: Psychobiographical analyses of the significant representatives of confessional poetry are important in understanding both the genesis of the poems and the history of the authors' psychiatric disorders. Most of the American confessional poets have died by suicide but Robert Lowell avoided this sad faith. AIMS: The purpose of this present paper is to analyze how the psychiatric disorder has been captured in his confessio - nal poetry and what sorts of creative processes can be identified that have possibly contributed to the fact that Lowell avoided suicide. METHODS: Art-, biographical- and document analyses have been performed. The analyzed writings belong to the confessional-lyrical part of Lowell's oeuvre. The reconstruction of the biography- and the illness history have been conducted based on international publications. RESULTS: Robert Lowell was hospitalized for the first time due to a psychiatric disorder in 1949, at the age of 32. The diagnosis was bipolar disorder and he suffered from this disorder through the rest of his life. During his psychiatric treatments obvious relationships have been revealed between his hypomanic states and artistic creativity. Moreover, he felt that his illness had been playing an important part in his art and contributed to his identity. The onset of the episodes of his bipolar disorder and the processes of his artistic self-expression were intertwined. Accordingly, hypo - manic states served as sources for creativity and the illness itself became an important theme in his poetry. CONCLUSIONS: Robert Lowell's artistic viewpoint, his desire for freedom and the sensitive way he was able to show Ame - rica in the mid-twentieth century all might have been in relationship with his psychiatric illness. His unique per - spective and artistic and political sensitivity made him one of the most admired poets of his era and maybe the same sensitivity contributed to his unexpected death at the age of 60. Professional psychiatric treatments, creative generative processes and the received support from family members and friends were those factors that might have been helped him in avoiding suicide.

Ateleological propagation in Goethe's Metamorphosis of plants.

It was commonly accepted in Goethe's time that plants were equipped both to propagate themselves and to play a certain role in the natural economy as a result of God's beneficent and providential design. Goethe's identification of sexual propagation as the "summit of nature" in The Metamorphosis of Plants (1790) might suggest that he, too, drew strongly from this theological-metaphysical tradition that had given rise to Christian Wolff's science of teleology. Goethe, however, portrayed nature as inherently active and propagative, itself improvising into the future by multiple means, with no extrinsically pre-ordained goal or fixed end-point. Rooted in the nature philosophy of his friend and mentor Herder, Goethe's plants exhibit their own historically and environmentally conditioned drives and directionality in The Metamorphosis of Plants. In this paper I argue that conceiving of nature as active productivity-not merely a passive product-freed Goethe of the need to tie plants' forms and functions to a divine system of ends, and allowed him to consider possibilities for plants, and for nature, beyond the walls of teleology.

Giovanni Rajberti (1805-1861): An uncompromising physician and poet.

The aim of this paper is to describe the figure of the Italian uncompromising physician and poet Giovanni Rajberti (1805-1861), who was a strenuous opponent of non-scientific medical practices in Italy, including Animal Magnetism, Homeopathy and Hydropathy. In particular, he demonstrated the inconsistency of mesmerist practices in an exemplary yet less-known episode that involved the famous French writer Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850). Although his ideas hindered his career, Rajberti continued to criticize alternative practices, sustaining the value of true medicine and science against charlatans.

"To nitrous oxide, chloroform gives way": Was Dr. W.J.A. DeLancey's poetic license in advertising inspired?

Born in New Hampshire but raised in Massachusetts, 14-year-old William J.A. DeLancey became "the man of the house" after the accidental death of his father. Amiable and good humored, young DeLancey supported his widowed mother and his three sisters until the girls all reached maturity. After he married, DeLancey moved to Illinois and took up dentistry, eventually settling in Centralia. Following anesthesia training back east at Manhattan's Colton Dental Association, DeLancey returned to Centralia. There he practiced the Coltonian method of testing freshly made nitrous oxide upon himself before using the gas upon patients. Before his training at Colton Dental, DeLancey had advertised in Centralia newspapers only in prose. After he began administering laughing gas to his patients and to himself, DeLancey waxed poetic and began advertising in heroic couplets in local newspapers.

"A Weight of Carrion Flesh": Measuring Disgust, Shakespearean Mimesis

The present article argues that a Shakespearean poetics of disgust unveils a deeper concern in his work with the moral and social limits of the emotions. The essay first looks into a well-known treatise on physiology and psychology, Thomas Wright’s The Passions of the Minde in Generall (1601, 1604), in relation to Renaissance theories of poetry and Shakespeare’s figurations of disgust in Hamlet (1601), King Lear (1604), The Winter’s Tale(1611) and Timon of Athens (1607). Its aim is to explore the capacity of metaphors and tropes, in both medical and poetic discourse, to test affective intensity, as measuring the passions was considered a necessary condition for moral and social well-being. In Shakespeare’s plays the moral dimension of disgust is often put to question by the aesthetic element inherent in poetic mimesis, which tends to depict the disgusting as a source of pleasure. The essay’s second part turns to The Merchant of Venice (1596) to assess, through the trajectories of disgust that sustain the rivalry be-ween the merchant Antonio and the moneylender Shylock, a second notion of mimesis: the envious emulation of others’ ways of feeling that cultural theorists like René Girard (1991) have signposted as the core of Shakespeare's modernity. In broad-er terms, this study points to the centrality of the these two notions of mimesis for an understanding of the early modern phenomenology of the emotions

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John Donne, Spanish Doctors and the epidemic typhus: fleas or lice? / John Donne, médicos españoles y el tifus epidémico: ¿pulgas o piojos?

We describe the infections that appeared in the life and work of John Donne (1572-1631), the English metaphysical poet, mainly the exanthematic typhus that suffered and gave arise to his work Devotions upon emergent occasions, and several steps in my sickness. We discuss the vector of transmission of this disease, in comparison of other infections in that period, that Donne's scholars have related to the flea without mentioning the body louse, the true vector of the exanthematic typhus. Likewise, we mention the exanthematic typhus's symptoms in his Devotions in comparison with the Luis de Toro's or Alfonso López de Corella's works, Spanish doctors in those times and the first doctors in write books about the disease, and the singular treatment of pigeon carcasses on the soles of the feet in English Doctors but not in Spanish Doctors

Se describen las infecciones que aparecieron en la vida y la obra de John Donne (1572-1631), el poeta metafísico inglés, principalmente el tifus epidémico que padeció y que dio lugar a su obra "Devotions upon emergent ocassions, and several steps in my sickness". Discutimos el vector transmisor de la enfermedad, en comparación de otras infecciones en ese periodo, que los estudiosos de Donne han relacionado a las pulgas y sin mencionar el piojo del cuerpo que es el verdadero vector del tifus epidémico. Además, mencionamos los síntomas de la enfermedad en su obra "Devotions" en comparación con los trabajos de Luis de Toro o Alfonso López Corella, médicos españoles de su tiempo y los primeros en escribir los tratados sobre la enfermedad, y el tratamiento singular de las carcasas de palomas en las palmas y plantas de los pies en los médicos ingleses pero no presente en los médicos españoles

John Donne, Spanish Doctors and the epidemic typhus: fleas or lice?

We describe the infections that appeared in the life and work of John Donne (1572-1631), the English metaphysical poet, mainly the exanthematic typhus that suffered and gave arise to his work Devotions upon emergent occasions, and several steps in my sickness. We discuss the vector of transmission of this disease, in comparison of other infections in that period, that Donne´s scholars have related to the flea without mentioning the body louse, the true vector of the exanthematic typhus. Likewise, we mention the exanthematic typhus´s symptoms in his Devotions in comparison with the Luis de Toro´s or Alfonso López de Corella´s works, Spanish doctors in those times and the first doctors in write books about the disease, and the singular treatment of pigeon carcasses on the soles of the feet in English Doctors but not in Spanish Doctors.

Empédocles y el sistema visual / Empedocles and the visual system

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Dermatology in Ancient Rome: Medical ingredients in Ovid's "Remedies for female faces".

BACKGROUND: In Roman medicine, face packs, plasters, unguents, and peelings were part of the therapy of dermatological diseases, but also served cosmetic purposes. Ancient medical textbooks inform us about the ingredients for these applications. Beyond medical literature, other genres contain information about dermatological applications. The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17 AD) wrote a didactic poem recording five recipes for topical applications for female faces (Medicamina faciei femineae). Researchers debate the relation of Ovid's poem to Roman medicine: Does the poem contain therapeutical or cosmetical information, or is it mere belles lettres? AIMS: The objective of the paper is to conduct a medico-historical classification of Ovid's poem by determining whether the ingredients of Ovid's recipes were thought to be effective by the authors of Roman medical textbooks. METHODS: First, translation and identification of the ingredients were carried out. Second, comparison of the ingredients' functions regarding the therapy of dermatological diseases in two important Roman medical textbooks was realized. For this purpose, several commentaries on the text of Ovid were used and a keyword search in Roman medical textbooks was performed. RESULTS: Ovid's five recipes contain 23 ingredients. All ingredients can be found in medical textbooks. We find that 14 of these ingredients serve cosmetic purposes, 17 serve the therapy of dermatological diseases, and 13 serve both. CONCLUSION: Ovid's recipes contain drugs that were considered effective by the authors of Roman medical textbooks. These drugs were recommended both for therapeutic and cosmetic purposes by the same authors. Therefore, Ovid's didactic poem is not mere belles lettres, but contains serious medical and cosmetical information. As far as we know, it is the first Roman text that contains dermatological recipes.

Cancer and the emotions in 18th-century literature.

This essay argues that the emotional rhetoric of today's breast cancer discourse-with its emphasis on stoicism and 'positive thinking' in the cancer patient, and its use of sympathetic feeling to encourage charitable giving-has its roots in the long 18th century. While cancer had long been connected with the emotions, 18th-century literature saw it associated with both 'positive' and 'negative' feelings, and metaphors describing jealousy, love and other sentiments as 'like a cancer' were used to highlight the danger of allowing feelings-even benevolent or pleasurable feelings-to flourish unchecked. As the century wore on, breast cancer in particular became an important literary device for exploring the dangers of feeling in women, with writers of both moralising treatises and sentimental novels connecting the growth or development of cancer with the indulgence of feeling, and portraying emotional self-control as the only possible form of resistance against the disease. If, as Barbara Ehrenreich suggests, today's discourse of 'positive thinking' has been mobilised to make patients with breast cancer more accepting of their diagnosis and more cooperative with punitive treatment regimens, then 18th-century fictional exhortations to stay cheerful served similarly conservative political and economic purposes, encouraging continued female submission to male prerogatives inside and outside the household.

Lesiones oftálmicas en La Ilíada de Homero / Ophthalmic injuries in The Iliad of Homer

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"Los libros y la noche", perspectiva neurológica de la ceguera de Jorge Luis Borges.

The works of Argentinian scholar Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) have captivated physicians. An assiduous reader, he was given, with magnificent irony, "books and the night". Borges suffered from chronic and irreversible blindness, which influenced much of his work and has been the subject of different literary and diagnostic analyses from the ophthalmological point of view. However, the characteristics of his visual impairment have escaped the neurological approach, which is why we reviewed his work looking for data suggesting a concomitant brain injury. On his autobiography, he recounts how, during an episode of septicemia, he suffered hallucinations and loss of speech; in addition, in some poems and essays he describes data that suggest "phantom chromatopsia", a lesion of cortical origin. After that accident, Borges survived with a radical change in literary style. Although a precise diagnosis is impossible, his literary work allows recognizing some elements in favor of concomitant brain involvement.

La obra del erudito argentino Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) ha cautivado a los médicos. Asiduo lector con magnífica ironía, le fueron dados "los libros y la noche". Borges padeció una ceguera crónica e irreversible que impulsó gran parte de su obra y ha sido objeto de distintos análisis literarios y diagnósticos desde el punto de vista oftalmológico. Sin embargo, las características de su ceguera han escapado al abordaje neurológico, por lo cual revisamos su obra en busca de datos que sugieran una lesión cerebral concomitante. En su autobiografía relata cómo durante un episodio de septicemia padeció alucinaciones y pérdida del habla; además, en algunos poemas y ensayos describe datos que sugieren "cromatopsia fantasma", lesión de origen cortical. Tras dicho accidente, Borges sobrevivió con un cambio radical en su estilo literario. Aunque un diagnóstico preciso es imposible, su obra literaria nos permite reconocer algunos elementos que sugieren involucramiento cerebral concomitante.

"The books and the night", neurological perspective on Jorge Luis Borges' blindness

The works of Argentinian scholar Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) have captivated physicians. An assiduous reader, he was given, with magnificent irony, "books and the night". Borges suffered from chronic and irreversible blindness, which influenced much of his work and has been the subject of different literary and diagnostic analyses from the ophthalmological point of view. However, the characteristics of his visual impairment have escaped the neurological approach, which is why we reviewed his work looking for data suggesting a concomitant brain injury. On his autobiography, he recounts how, during an episode of septicemia, he suffered hallucinations and loss of speech; in addition, in some poems and essays he describes data that suggest "phantom chromatopsia", a lesion of cortical origin. After that accident, Borges survived with a radical change in literary style. Although a precise diagnosis is impossible, his literary work allows recognizing some elements in favor of concomitant brain involvement.

[Mask and Self - and the Illness: Injuries of the Soul in Sylvia Plath's Poetry].

The study focuses on two features of Sylvia Plath's poetry that may be directly linked to her illness, her mask poetry and her female Bildung, where the former is informed by her sense of plural selfhood, while the latter gives account of the failures of her creative self-constructions. Although no direct connection can be set up between life and work even in the case of a confessional poet, it is probably safe to claim that multiple personality may manifest in a plural poetic self, while the Self developing in Bildung narratives contradicts the idea of a split personality. Enikô Bollobás explores the heteroclite diversity of artistic vision through discussing the pluralism of poetic masks and identities, insisting that, in the spirit of late modernism, no self-interpretive frame exists for Plath, one that would hold together the diverse identities. The long poems and poem cycles give narratives of female Bildung, portraying the woman's diverse attempts to break out of the traps of patriarchy; some of these are failed attempts, yet others offer allegories of the poet's creative self-constructions.

[Failure in the construction of the ego in confessional poetry - Sylvia Plath and Attila Jozsef].

The two poets, an American Sylvia Plath and a Hungarian, Attila József were separated by a quarter of century of time, they lived and worked in different spaces, cultures, but both created in their poetry a radically new style of self-expression, called confessional poetry. The "Belated Lament" of Attila József was written in 1936, and in the following year its author - after repeated earlier attempts - committed suicide. The "Daddy" of Sylvia Plath was written in 1962. She, again, after several attempts, killed herself the following year. They both talk about the powerful effect of the disruptive effect of unresolved Oedipal memories, both are deeply concerned with mourning of the Oedipal other a father and a mother (who died several decades before), and they also construct the death of their own. They both present themselves as an unsuccessful Oedipus and articulate a disturbing and disruptive arrival to Kolonos.