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After Great Pain
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After Great Pain |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan 
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. Was Emily Dickinson a great poet or more a psychotic with nothing better to do and plenty of time to do it in . . . ? . |
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Ringo 
since 2003-02-20
Posts 3684Saluting with misty eyes |
Who's to say the two are mutually exclusive? H. P. Lovecraft was a certifiable as a writer can get, and yet he was one of the finest (in my opinion) horror writers to ever grace the frailities of the human psyche. His Cthulu series gave this youngster more than one nightmare when he was introduced at the tender age of 11... and he wrote most of his works as a resident of the squirrel farm... with too much time and nothing to do. Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, "WHAT A RIDE |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I just picked up a complete fiction of Lovecraft in a Barnes and Noble special edition for about $13.00 in hardbound, Ringo. I too am a long time fan. I had thought about getting the bells and whistles Library of America edition, but I figure I don't need that many extra notes. It's a good deal, and if you have a B&N card you should be able to get 20% off. Or if you know somebody with a B&N card.. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Back to business. I don't think she was psychotic, John; I think she was too canny for that. She was very aware of trends in the external literary world. I think she was agoraphobic and she might have had a laundry list of other phobias as well. She was reclusive, yes, and when she was ill once, her poor doctor had to diagnose her by having her run across the doorway while she was dressed in a shift. The light was none too good. That's what Don Justice claimed at any rate, and he was very much into her stuff. If you read her stuff, she was certainly peculiar, but there is no hint of any sort of formal thought disorder or of any flight of ideas or of any pressured thinking. The linking in her thoughts would have been unusual if she weren't a poet, but of course she was. There was no evidence of delusional thinking or of hallucinations, either negative or positive, no thought deletion or insertion or any of the usual wrecking crew that would define schizophrenic thought. You can draw a distinction between odd folks and crazy folks, and she was definitely on the odd side, but she was pretty clearly oriented to time, place and person. Her grooming was supposed to be impecable. She was impoverished in terms of her social sphere and she never made any really close partner relationships that we know of, which might place her, again, in the schizoid or schizotypal range if, and this is an enormous if, we had evidence of strange sorts of thinking, funny ideas and stuff of that sort. Her withdrawal is much more straightforwardly explained by a phobia. Psychosis is unlikely. That's what I think, at any rate. What are your thoughts on the matter? |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
I don't see what even justifies suggesting that she were "psychotic". Don't we all have oddities? |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Not me, Ess! I have "Features!" |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. "After Great Pain" By Docter John Cody, who spent seven years in research on her as the subject. My opening post in its latter part merely summarized his more diplomatic conclusions in his epilogue. , |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. I today finished an article that viewed the same evidence as being indicative of a Calvinist religionist experience; a terrifying experience of the eternal at the expense of the temporary self. Either way then, Dickinson was the fractured vehicle not the author of the poetry. The psychologists actually have a name for this condition. . |
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