Category: Literary Essays
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Charlotte Perkins Gilman, apostle of women’s liberation
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote much about the state of women in society, publishing the still widely acclaimed short story, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892). She also wrote other essays, somewhat colored by her own life experiences. Her father had left his family when she and her brother were…
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Reading the brain in John Keats’s “Ode to Psyche”
Kathryne DycusMadrid, Spain The Romantic poet John Keats wrote in a letter dated May 18, 1818, “I am glad at not having given away my medical books, which I shall look over again to keep alive the little I knew towards that work.”1 Though the Romantic poet abandoned a career in medicine, the knowledge he…
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John Keats – One whose name was writ in water
John Keats, one of the great poets of all times, was born near Moorgate in London in 1795. His father was an inn stable keeper (an ostler), who one night fell off a horse and fatally fractured his skull, leaving his family somewhat impecunious.1 John, sibling of four, was far from a model pupil in…
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Margaret Edson’s W;t: Lessons on person-centered care
Atara MessingerToronto, Ontario, Canada American playwright Margaret Edson’s 1998 play W;t has been described as “ninety minutes of suffering and death mitigated by a pelvic exam and a lecture on seventeenth-century poetry.”1 When W;t was first published, most theater companies rejected it on the grounds that its subject matter would be too difficult for audiences…
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New opioid epidemic: another long day’s journey
Carol LevineNew York, New York, United States Edmund Tyrone, age 23 (August 1912, New London, Connecticut) “It’s pretty hard to take at times, having a dope fiend for a mother!”From Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill, Act III1 Alexis Lightle, age 17 (December 2017, Chillicothe, Ohio) “My dad was on pills and opiates…
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George Gordon Lord Byron and his limp
JMS PearceHull, UK Few would dispute that Lord Byron (Fig 1) was both a poetic prodigy and a flamboyant rogue. George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788–1824), was born on 22 January 1788 at Holles Street, London, son of Captain John (“Mad Jack”) Byron and his second wife, Catherine, née Gordon. John Byron was a…
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Saints on trial
Michael ShulmanNew Hope, Pennsylvania, United States There is an irresistible sub-genre of literature devoted to the moral takedown of saints and would-be saints, and it has brought forth contributions from some of the masters of English prose. One thinks especially of George Orwell’s portrait of Gandhi (“Saints should always be judged guilty until they are…
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The Brothers Grimm under the knife
Valerie GribbenSan Francisco, California, United States Magic-infused fairytales and modern medicine are intertwined as closely as the curving double helix of DNA. Do you doubt this? Well, let us start by acknowledging that the word “magic” has to a large degree regrettably lost its luster. “Magic” these days conjures up images of clowns pulling quarters…