John Keats is arguably the most famous physician-poet. He was born in 1795. In 1810 he was apprenticed to a surgeon, and in 1816, after passing his Licentiate at Apothecary Hall in London, began work as a dresser at Guy’s Hospital.

His first book ‘Endymion’ is perhaps a patchy, even tedious, piece of 19^th century romanticism, but it begins famously:

‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

It’s loveliness increases, it will never

pass into nothingness, but still will keep

a bower quiet for us, and a sleep

full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.’

 

Keats is famed for his lyrical poetry, but also for remaining optimistically passionate about Nature, Truth, and Beauty through a sad and short life. He very soon gave up medical practice to devote his life to literature. He died of consumption in 1821, when he was only 25. 

Consider: What was consumption? Why was it called that? 

What is it like to be a patient with a thorough knowledge of one’s condition?

 

Here are parts 2 and 3 of John Keats’ ‘An Ode on Melancholy’ 

2

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

and hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

or on the rainbow of the salt-sand wave,

or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

emprison her soft hand and let her rave,

and feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

 

3

She dwells with Beauty-Beauty that must die;

and Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

bidding Adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

turning to poison while the bee mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of delight

veil’d Melancholy has her Sovran shrine,

though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine:

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might

And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

 

Consider: Is to ‘glut thy sorrow on a morning rose’ a worthwhile treatment for melancholy?

                  Is there something healthy about nature? Have you had an experience you can write about?

 

John Logan was a prominent poet in the United States in the 1960’s. This is part of his elegy ‘On the Death of Keats:

 

“How long is this posthumous life of mine

to last”, you said.

What is a poet without breath enough?

The doctor made you swallow cupfuls of your blood

when it came up

out of your rotten lungs again.

Your study of medicine

made you suffer more the movements

of your death. One tiny fish

and a piece of black bread

to control the blood

every day you died. You starved for food

and air. For poetry. For love.

  

Consider:  Look up the treatment Logan mentions: drinking your own blood: what was the purpose of this?

                        Try writing your own poem in which you imagine what it is like to be a doctor who suffers a particular medical condition. 

 

There is a lot of literature about tuberculosis. Next year we will look at The Magic Mountain, the novel that confirmed Thomas Mann for the Nobel Prize.  

References and further reading 

Keats’ work can be found anywhere.

Logan, John (1969)  The Zig-Zag Walk : Poems 1963-1968 

Mansfield, Katherine   Journal extract in Carmichael AG and Ratzan RM (1991) Medicine in Literature and Art   Konemann p228