Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Edgar Allan Poe

  • Poe’s murder mystery as a model of neurodiverse inclusion

    Geoff HoppeVirginia, United States A murder mystery might seem like a strange place to find hope, but hope is what Edgar Allan Poe’s mysteries can provide—if you know how to look. While Poe’s stories depict the macabre, they also demonstrate how a neurodiverse mind can find inclusion in a neurotypical society. Two instances in a…

  • Emily, Usher, and American Gothic perspectives on mortality

    Olga ReykhartLiam ButchartStony Brook, New York, United States In an editorial for Medical Humanities, Gillie Bolton notes that death is a common theme in literature and also in medicine. She writes, “Death, dying, and bereavement are dark threads running through all literature. Not only are they life’s sole certainties, along with birth; they are also…

  • “Something monomanical”: obsession and the unity of effect

    Jack RosserHerefordshire, England, United Kingdom The concept of monomania first gathered popularity in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century; the term “referred to a type of mental disorder in which a person would have fixed, and often grandiose, ideas that did not correspond to reality.”1 These ideas would be “confined to a single…

  • Edgar Allan Poe—A tormented literary genius

    Donna OlsonWhitelaw, Alberta A man attempts to hide from his sins and ultimately from himself. A murderer takes an old man’s life and hides the body under the floorboards. But he cannot silence his guilt, so he keeps on hearing the dead man’s heart in his room. This story is “The Tell-Tale Heart,” written by…

  • A poem about plagiarism

    Sergei JarginMoscow, Russia  (After Edgar Allan Poe) Not Pushkin am I, neither Poe,So great is not my fame.I am a humble Russian poet,S. Jargin is my name. To plagiarize is worse than stealWe love the Copyright,And by quotations we revealThe source from which we write. Great Bear is roaring in morassAnd rising up upright,Reminding Russian…