Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Disturbing Deaths In the Literary World

Being a writer getting you down? Take some tips from these writers who managed to find interesting ways to end it all.

Inspiration for the following list of dead literary figures came from Charles Bukowski’s poem, "Beasts bounding through time," specifically the lines "sylvia [plath] with her head in the oven like a baked potato . . . Shakespeare a plagiarist . . . the impossibility of being human." Some may call it morbid, some may call it truth - either way I don’t give a damn.

  • Euripides [480-406 B.C.] Greek Playwright - Mauled by a pack of wild dogs owned by Archelaus, the King of Macedonia.
  • Dante Alighieri [1256-1321] Italian Poet - Fell ill and died about an hour after completing The Divine Comedy.
  • Francis Villon [1431-1464?] French Poet - May have been attacked by a mob of bandits or hanged by authorities after a brief prison stay for murdering a priest. Take your pick. Left France at the age of 32 and was never heard from again. "Where are the snows of yesteryear?"
See the full list here:

http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/articles/display_article.php?id=00011

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh the fine grey season.
Few Canadians on the list:
Let's not leave out the Pat Lowther tragedy. Lucy Maud Montgomery and Margaret Laurence (purportedly). David Foster Wallace. And a couple more who drowned.

I've read about this before. Creative sorts are prone. What we we do without the damn abyss anyhow?