Abstract
Recently, proponents of the Critical Medical Humanities have recommended more genre-specific approaches to the analyses of illness narratives, looking at cultural specificities of idioms of distress rather than exclusively at trans-historical or transcultural approaches. This genre-specific critique grounds my reading of the work of Chinese poets Guo Lusheng (*1948) and Wen Jie (*1963), diagnosed with schizophrenia and clinical depression, respectively. The study uncovers a lyrical voice that takes shape in the poets’ illness-related contents, but also in the formal aspects of the Chinese poetic tradition. I argue that the therapeutic delight of writing poetry lies less in expressing subjective experiences than in finding poetic forms that integrate individual experiences into a collective form of illness poetics.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Jahrbuch Literatur und Medizin : Bd. X |
Editors | Florian STEGER, Katharina Fürholzer |
Place of Publication | Germany |
Publisher | Universitätsverlag Winter |
Pages | 91-107 |
Volume | 10 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783825369385, 9783825378394 |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |