Ivan Seeking
Apr23-04, 11:02 AM
Poets die young - younger than novelists, playwrights and other writers, a US researcher says.
It could be because poets are tortured and prone to self-destruction, or it could be that poets become famous young, so their early deaths are noticed, said James Kaufman of the Learning Research Institute at California State University at San Bernardino.
For the report, published in the Journal of Death Studies, Kaufman studied 1,987 dead writers from various centuries from the United States, China, Turkey and Eastern Europe. He classified the writers as fiction writers, poets, playwrights, and non-fiction writers. He did not study the causes of death.
"Among American, Chinese and Turkish writers, poets died significantly younger than non-fiction writers," Kaufman wrote in the report. "Among the entire sample, poets died younger than both fiction writers and non-fiction writers."
Because Kaufman studied some writers who lived hundreds of years ago, it is impossible to compare their average age of death to that of the general population.
"On average, poets lived 62 years, playwrights 63 years, novelists 66 years and non-fiction writers lived 68 years," Kaufman said in an interview conducted by e-mail. [continued]
http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0,,3782-3279948,00.html
Not to be knocking great literature since I really do have a great appreciation for what I have read, but while in college I did notice that the stuff is often really depressing. I remember being depressed for days while I had to read and analyze Hemmingway’s "To Kill an Elephant".
It could be because poets are tortured and prone to self-destruction, or it could be that poets become famous young, so their early deaths are noticed, said James Kaufman of the Learning Research Institute at California State University at San Bernardino.
For the report, published in the Journal of Death Studies, Kaufman studied 1,987 dead writers from various centuries from the United States, China, Turkey and Eastern Europe. He classified the writers as fiction writers, poets, playwrights, and non-fiction writers. He did not study the causes of death.
"Among American, Chinese and Turkish writers, poets died significantly younger than non-fiction writers," Kaufman wrote in the report. "Among the entire sample, poets died younger than both fiction writers and non-fiction writers."
Because Kaufman studied some writers who lived hundreds of years ago, it is impossible to compare their average age of death to that of the general population.
"On average, poets lived 62 years, playwrights 63 years, novelists 66 years and non-fiction writers lived 68 years," Kaufman said in an interview conducted by e-mail. [continued]
http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0,,3782-3279948,00.html
Not to be knocking great literature since I really do have a great appreciation for what I have read, but while in college I did notice that the stuff is often really depressing. I remember being depressed for days while I had to read and analyze Hemmingway’s "To Kill an Elephant".