Medical humanism in the poetry of Raymond Carver.
There is an analogy between a scientific approach to medicine in which the patient ultimately becomes an object of study rather than a whole person, and a post/modern aesthetic in literature in which the subject has little or no agency in a chaotic linguistic universe. Raymond Carver died of cancer in 1988, and in both his pre- and post-diagnostic poetry there is humanistic lyricism that contributes to re-establishing empathic bonds between readers and characters, and to re-humanizing the patient as a whole person in the context of contemporary health institutions. Close readings of poems with descriptions of the autopsy room and of patient-doctor relations bring out the medical humanism in Carver's verse.
Department of English, Humanities Faculty, University of Tromsoe, 9037, Tromso, Norway. Sandra.Lee.Kleppe@hum.uit.no
Sandra Lee
SL
Kleppe
D049673:History, 20th Century; D006808:Humanism / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms; D008511:Medicine; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D011037:Poetry as Topic / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States