I don't know that I have really thought about this much before, but I see that the matter has been studied, particularly in relation to female poets. From the Wikipedia entry on "The Sylvia Plath effect":
The Sylvia Plath effect is the phenomenon that poets are more susceptible to mental illness than other creative writers. The term was coined in 2001 by psychologist James C. Kaufman. This early finding has been dubbed "the Sylvia Plath effect", and implications and possibilities for future research are discussed...
In one study, 1,629 writers were analyzed for signs of mental illness. Female poets were found to be significantly more likely to experience mental illness than female fiction writers or male writers of any type. Another study extended the analysis to 520 eminent women (poets, fiction writers, non-fiction writers, visual artists, politicians, and actresses), and again found the poets to be significantly more likely to experience mental illness.[1]
In another study performed by the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, female writers were found to be more likely to suffer not only from mood disorders, but also from panic attacks, general anxiety, drug abuse, and eating disorders. The rates of multiple mental disorders were also higher among these writers. Although it was not explored in depth, abuse during childhood (physical or sexual) also loomed as a possible contributor to psychological issues in adulthood. The cumulative psychopathology scores of subjects, their reported exposure to abuse during childhood, mental difficulties in their mothers, and the combined creativity scores of their parents represented significant predictors of their illnesses. The high rates of certain emotional disorders in female writers suggested a direct relationship between creativity and psychopathology, but the relationships were not clear-cut. As the results of the predictive analysis indicated, familial and environmental factors also appeared to play a role.[5]
I see at Quora someone asks:
Do poets get depression or do depressed people write poetry?
Anyway, Tim, you seem a jolly enough fellow whose poetry is not a downer. But has anyone done a study on how much published poetry could be categorised as "cheerful" as opposed to "deals with a depressing subject" or at best "melancholic"?
2 comments:
Is it different to the overall population?
Can I confess I didn't like his poetry?
It's true, there are a lot of depressed poets. But you *do* see the same pattern in other professions: stand-up comedy is a good example. Maybe it's common right through the arts, though it tends to be more evident in poetry and writing and public speaking as those people tend to be more articulate about such things. (There are some very famous depressive politicians as well - Winston Churchill, Bob Hawke. I reckon in some years we might find that Barack Obama has something of a depressive temperament as well).
I don't quite agree with the terms of the Quora question - 'Do poets get depression or do depressed people write poetry?'. While it's evident that the profession is attractive for every new generation of Sylvia Plath's, occasionally a poet or writer will come along whose work will be so stunning and whose personality won't fit into any prescribed template.
For our generation, there have been poets like Sylvia Plath and Ginsberg.... that, coupled with the post-romantic conception of poetry as 'self-expression' and 'the description of emotion' ('emotion recalled in tranquility' is how Wordsworth put it) has attracted generations of troubled and angsty teens to the poetry cause. But. It doesn't have to be that way.
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