Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Poet

  • Baudelaire’s spleen

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Je suis comme le roi d’un pays pluvieux,Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très-vieux,Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes,S’ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d’autres bêtes.Rien ne peut l’égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon,Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon. I am like the king of a rainy country, richbut…

  • Winnie Ille Pu and Dr. Alexander Lenard

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Sandor (Alexander) Lenard1 was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1910 and died in Dona Irma, Santa Catarina, Brazil in 1972. He was a Jewish poet, author, physician, painter, musician, translator, language teacher, philosopher, and polyglot. A short outline of Lenard’s life events could be summarized as follows: Hungary, medical studies in…

  • A poet for a patient: A tenth century poem by al Mutanabbi

    Sama AlreddawiBarry MeisenbergAnnapolis, Maryland, United States “The Night Visitor”1 Sick of body, unable to rise up…Vehemently intoxicated without wine …And it is as though she who visits me were filled with modesty…For she does not pay her visits save under cover of darkness …I freely offered her my linen and my pillows…But she refused them,…

  • William Wordsworth: “The blind poet”?

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, on April 7, 1770. He was the totemic father of the Lakeland poets, who extolled the relation between man and the natural world: a wedding between nature and the human mind that to him symbolized the mind of God. A prolific writer…

  • On suffering and its depiction in William Carlos Williams’s “The Yellow Flower”

    Negin RezaeiTehran, Iran Eric Cassell observed that physical pain and suffering are two distinct experiences and that pain is only one of the infinite number of sources that may cause suffering in human beings. Doctors, he believes, need to understand this distinction if they are to establish an effective connection with their patients. Successfully treating…

  • Ángeles Mastretta’s life ripped apart

    Bernardo NgImperial County, California, United States Ángeles Mastretta, born in 1949 in the city of Puebla, Mexico, is a poet, journalist, and author who was brought to fame by her novel Arráncame la vida, which was translated as Tear this heart out, or more literally, “Rip my life apart.” Published in 1985, it became such…

  • Book review: John Keats’ Medical Notebook

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom February 23, 2021 marked the bicentenary of the death of the great Romantic poet John Keats. Born in 1795, Keats lived a tragically short life, dying at the age of only twenty-five. It is perhaps little known that he first qualified as an apothecary doctor before giving up medicine for…

  • Doctor Schiller

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was born on November 10, 1759 in Marbach, Württemberg, Germany. His father, Johann Caspar Schiller, was a regimental surgeon in the service of Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg. Schiller (1759–1805) is best known for his immense influence on German literature. In his relatively short life, he…

  • Rilke: A poet’s death

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Rose, oh reiner widerspruch, lust,Niemandes schlaf zu sein under soviel lidern Rose, o pure contradiction, desire,to be no one’s sleep beneath so many lids. – Rainer Maria Rilke, epitaph On December 4, 1875, René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (later changed to Rainer Maria Rilke) was born in Prague, the…

  • 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…