Poets Have Short Lives?
By Syed Amir, PhD
Bethesda, MD

Do poets, writers and composers, practitioners of the fine arts, have a shorter lifespan than other professionals? The question has intrigued many literary researchers in the West for some time. Poets and writers, after all, are credited with a sensitive, perceptive and contemplative disposition which predisposes them to identify and empathize with the pain and sufferings of others. :Aristotle is reported to have first posed the question some four hundred years before the birth of Christ: “Why is it that all men who excel in philosophy, poetry or the arts are melancholic?” He did not have the answer to his own question; neither do we even today.

While it has been hypothesized for some time in the West that poets die young, no systematic studies were conducted to prove or disprove this supposition until recently. Professor James Kaufman at the Learning Research Institute, California State University, San Bernardino, has now compared the longevity of poets and writers from several regions of the world. His findings published in 2003 in the journal Death Studies (27: 813-821, 2003) have stimulated much interest and initiated a lively debate among the academic fraternity. The journal, as the name implies, is devoted to research that explores death rates among people pursuing a range of professions. Recent research has also addressed the question of whether a relationship exists between the creative faculty and mental instability in humans. In other words, are people who are intellectually gifted also somewhat mentally unstable?

Professor Kaufman studied the life histories of approximately 2,000 poets who had lived and worked in four different regions of the world--America, China, Turkey and Eastern Europe. The life spans of four types of writers--poets, fiction and non-fiction writers, and playwrights — were compared. Both male and female writers and poets were included in the research. The earliest writer included in the study had lived in the fourth century AD in Eastern Europe, while the most recent writers lived during the 19th and 20th centuries.

When the research data collected by Professor Kaufman were analyzed, they led to some striking conclusions. Poets, whether American, Chinese or Turkish, had the shortest life, when compared to novelists, non-fiction writers and playwrights. These differences held across the gender lines. Eastern Europeans showed some slight deviation from this general rule, as playwrights, rather than poets, from these countries experienced the shortest lifetime. Even there, poets stood next to playwrights in the mortality queue. American poets lived to an average age of 66 years, shorter than non-fiction writers who lived for 73 years. Among all writers examined, the Chinese poets had the shortest lives, living to an average age of only 59 years, the non-fiction writers living for 68 years. Turkish poets and non-fiction writers did not show a wide divergence in their longevities; the former living an average life of 62 years, while the latter 67 years. Of the groups studied, poets and playwrights seemed to live shorter lives, poets doing slightly less well than playwrights. Regardless of whether the differences were wide or narrow, the trends were unmistakable--poets lived short lives.

Dr. Kaufman’s findings did not come entirely as a surprise to those who have followed the life histories of Western poets. A number of European poets in the recent centuries died young and led tragic lives. The English poet, John Keats, died of tuberculosis in Rome in 1821, while he was only 26 years old. The collection of his letters which brought him universal fame was published in 1848, 27 years after his death. Percy Shelley, another renowned English poet, lived and worked in Italy during the last four years of his life. He wrote much of his poetry while touring the country; ultimately dying there in 1822 by drowning in a boat wreck at the young age of 30 years. Shelley’s close friend, collaborator and a celebrated poet himself, Lord Byron, created some of his best poetry while traveling in Europe during the last few years of his life. He succumbed to malaria in 1824; he had lived for only 36 year. William Shakespeare, the prodigious playwright and poet who lived during the Elizabethan era died in 1616 when he was 52 years old, which perhaps might be considered a normal lifespan for that era. Of course, not all English poets died young. Both William Wordsworth and Alfred, Lord Tennyson who lived in eighteenth and nineteenth century England were 90 and 83 years old, respectively, at the time of their deaths. They undoubtedly enjoyed a long life.

The curse of a short lifespan, filled with misery, seems to have afflicted poets who lived in more recent times. The tragic and early death in 1963 of the talented American poet and fiction writer Sylvia Plath shocked many in the literary world. Depressed and despairing of life, she committed suicide in London when she was only 30 years old. This was not her first attempt at taking her own life. Although she was not well known at the time of her death, the publication in1965 of her collection of poems, Ariel, brought her international recognition. In 1981, she received the Pulitzer Prize, the highest literary award in America, for her poetry. Ann Sexton, an accomplished American poet who also won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1967, suffered from latent mental illness. She committed suicide in 1974 when she was only 47 years old. Another famous female American poet, Emily Dickinson, who died in 1886 when she was 56-years old, pursued a strange lifestyle. She eschewed all social contacts after the age of 23, writing poetry in seclusion, none of which was published during her lifetime. A century earlier, the black American poet, Paul Dunbar, son of a slave, gained fame and prominence for his contributions made in areas ranging from poetry, short stories, plays to non-fictional prose. He lived for only 33 years. Even today, he is much admired for his poetry, which is enjoyed by both children and adults.

The focus of academic research conducted thus far has been on western literary figures. To my knowledge, no similar studies have been directed at Urdu poets. However, a cursory examination of the available biographic details of Urdu poets does not support the notion that Urdu poets die young. The most prominent poet to die recently, Tabish Dehalvi, lived to a ripe age of 93 years. His death was mourned and his work celebrated internationally. From an examination of the life spans of selected Urdu poets of the twentieth century, Iqbal (65 years), Jigger (70 years), Josh (84 years), Faiz (73 years) and Qateel Shifai (82 years), it might be tentatively concluded that Urdu poetry does not exert the same adverse effect on longevity as western poetry. Among those Urdu poets who died relatively young are included Majaz Lucknowi (46 years), Parveen Shakir (42 years), Mustafa Zaidi and Ibn-e-Insha (52 years). While a trend might be perceptible in these numbers, any conclusions would not be valid or definitive until a proper study could be undertake in which the life spans of Urdu poets could be compared with writers of prose.

Following the publication of the research article by Dr. Kaufman, many people have speculated as to the cause of the early demise of poets. No single answer has emerged, although a number of theories have been advanced. Poets are generally emotional, introspective and excessively sensitive people, traits that make them more vulnerable than others to depression and mental instability. They are prone to a pervading sense of melancholy and despair. They ruminate excessively and also likely to indulge in self-destructive behavior, chasing dreams and pursuing impossible, fleeting love affairs.

According to some estimates, poets can produce work of great value while still in their twenties and thirties, whereas it might take fiction writers twice as long to produce comparable quality and quality of literature. Much like meteors, they blaze through the night sky, except that their legacy is far more lasting.



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