 Personal suffering and social criticism in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and A. Ginsberg’s Howl: Implications for social psychiatryMoritz E Wigand, Hauke F Wiegand, Nicolas Rüsch and Thomas Becker International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2016, vol. 62, issue 7, 672-678 Abstract: Background: T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and A. Ginsberg’s Howl are two landmark poems of the 20th century which have a unique way of dealing with emotional suffering. Aims: (a) To explore the interplay between emotional suffering, conflicting relationships and societal perceptions; (b) to show the therapeutic effect of the writing process; (c) to analyse the portrayal of ‘madness’; and (d) to discuss, in contemporary psychiatric terms, the ‘solutions’ offered by the poets. Method: Qualitative research with a narrative, hermeneutic approach. Results: Against the background of wartime/genocide and postwar disillusionment, close relationships are projected onto societal perceptions. Concepts of (self-)control, compassion, empowerment and self-efficacy are offered as solutions to overcome feelings of despair. Conclusion: In a time of perceived societal and environmental crises, both poems help us understand people’s fears and how to counteract them. Besides biological approaches, the narrative approach to the suffering human being has not lost its significance. Keywords: Modernity; crisis; close relationships; narratives; lobotomy; therapeutic writing; social criticism (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:62:y:2016:i:7:p:672-678 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Social Psychiatry |
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