Mental Cases
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Mental Cases
"Mental Cases" is one of Wilfred Owen's more graphic poems. It describes war-torn men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as shell shock. Owen based the poem on his experience of Craiglockhart Military Hospital, near Edinburgh, where he was invalided in the summer of 1917 with neurasthenia, and became the patient of Dr A.J. Brock. Using imagery of death and violence, Owen presents a chilling portrait of men haunted by their experiences. Short analysis The poem adopts a questioning tone initially, with the speaker asking “Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?” Owen uses this to present the men almost as strange carnival exhibits to be inspected or wondered at, emphasised by the base pronoun "these". They are depicted as grizzly, fascinating creatures, which seem "hellish" to the speaker. The second stanza goes on to depict memory as a cruel monster which tortures their minds, forcing them to relive the "Carnage incomparable" they witne ...
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Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced by his mentor Siegfried Sassoon and stood in contrast to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", " Futility", " Spring Offensive" and " Strange Meeting". Owen was killed in action on 4 November 1918, a week before the war's end, at the age of 25. Early life Owen was born on 18 March 1893 at Plas Wilmot, a house in Weston Lane, near Oswestry in Shropshire. He was the eldest of Thomas and (Harriett) Susan Owen (''née'' Shaw)'s four children; his siblings were Mary Millard, (William) Harold, and C ...
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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a person's life. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in the way a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response. These symptoms last for more than a month after the event. Young children are less likely to show distress but instead may express their memories through play. A person with PTSD is at a higher risk of suicide and intentional self-harm. Most people who experience traumatic events do not develop PTSD. People who experience interpersonal violence such as rape, other sexual assaults, being kidnapped, stalking, physical abuse by an intimate partner, an ...
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Shell Shock
Shell shock is a term coined in World War I by the British psychologist Charles Samuel Myers to describe the type of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) many soldiers were afflicted with during the war (before PTSD was termed). It is a reaction to the intensity of the bombardment and fighting that produced a helplessness appearing variously as panic and being scared, flight, or an inability to reason, sleep, walk or talk. During the war, the concept of shell shock was ill-defined. Cases of "shell shock" could be interpreted as either a physical or psychological injury, or as a lack of moral fibre. The term ''shell shock'' is still used by the United States’ Department of Veterans Affairs to describe certain parts of PTSD, but mostly it has entered into memory, and it is often identified as the signature injury of the war. In World War II and thereafter, diagnosis of "shell shock" was replaced by that of combat stress reaction, a similar but not identical response to the ...
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Craiglockhart
Craiglockhart (; gd, Creag Longairt) is a suburb in the south west of Edinburgh, Scotland, lying between Colinton to the south, Morningside to the east Merchiston to the north east, and Longstone and Kingsknowe to the west. The Water of Leith is also to the west. History The name is first recorded in 1278 as "Crag quam Stephanus Loccard miles tenuit", thus "Craig (or rock) of Loccard". The family, whose name was changed to Lockhart, are credited by Historic Scotland with building Craiglockhart Castle in the fifteenth century. The oldest "structure" in the area is the remains of a vitrified fort on the top of Wester Craiglockhart Hill, which is of prehistoric origin. This was somewhat mutilated by the addition of gun-emplacements in World War II, guarding against aerial attack. Excavations show the fort was re-occupied during Roman times. Craiglockhart Castle dates from the 15th century but is now ruined. The hill is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) due to i ...
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Neurasthenia
Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον ''neuron'' "nerve" and ἀσθενής ''asthenés'' "weak") is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries after neurologist George Miller Beard reintroduced the concept in 1869. As a Psychopathology, psychopathological term, the first to publish on neurasthenia was Michigan Psychiatrist, alienist E. H. Van Deusen of the Kalamazoo asylum in 1869, followed a few months later by New York neurologist George Beard, also in 1869, to denote a condition with symptoms of fatigue (physical), fatigue, anxiety, headache, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, neuralgia, and depression (mood), depressed mood. Van Deusen associated the condition with farm wives made sick by isolation and a lack of engaging activity, while Beard connected the condition to busy society women and overworked busi ...
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Dr A
Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mystery fiction, mysteries and fantasy, as well as much nonfiction. Asimov's most famous work is the ''Foundation series, Foundation'' series, the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. His other major series are the ''Galactic Empire series, Galactic Empire'' series and the ''Robot series, Robot'' series. The ''Galactic Empire'' novels are set in the much earlier history of the same fictional universe as the ''Foundation'' series. Later, with ''Foundation and Earth'' (1986), he linked this distant ...
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Freak Show
A freak show, also known as a creep show, is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with intersex variations, those with extraordinary diseases and conditions, and others with performances expected to be shocking to viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows (more common in modern times as a sideshow act), as have attention-getting physical performers such as fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts. Since at least the medieval period, deformed people have often been treated as objects of interest and entertainment, and crowds have flocked to see them exhibited. A famous early modern example was the exhibition at the court of King Charles I of Lazarus and Joannes Baptista Colloredo, two conjoined brothers born in Genoa, Italy. While Lazarus appeared to be otherwise ordinary, the underd ...
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Dulce Et Decorum Est
"Dulce et Decorum est" is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during World War I, and published posthumously in 1920. The Latin title is taken from Ode 3.2 (''Valor'') of the Roman poet Horace and means "it is sweet and fitting". It is followed by ''pro patria mori'', which means "to die for one's country". One of Owen's most renowned works, the poem is known for its horrific imagery and condemnation of war. It was drafted at Craiglockhart in the first half of October 1917 and later revised, probably at Scarborough but possibly Ripon, between January and March 1918. The earliest surviving manuscript is dated 8 October 1917 and addressed to his mother, Susan Owen, with the message: "Here is a gas poem done yesterday (which is not private, but not final)." Summary The text presents a vignette from the front lines of World War I; specifically, of British soldiers attacked with chlorine gas. In the rush when the shells with poison gas explode, one soldier is unable to get his mask on i ...
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British Poetry
{{Unreferenced, date=February 2022 British poetry is the field of British literature encompassing poetry from anywhere in the British world (whether of the British Isles, the British Empire, or the United Kingdom). The term is rarely used, as almost all such poets are clearly identified with one of the various nations or regions within those areas. Types of poetry which might be considered British poetry include: * English poetry * Irish poetry from Northern Ireland *Scottish poetry (see ''Scottish literature'') *Welsh poetry * Jèrriais poetry *Guernésiais Guernésiais, also known as ''Dgèrnésiais'', Guernsey French, and Guernsey Norman French, is the variety of the Norman language spoken in Guernsey. It is sometimes known on the island simply as "patois". As one of the langues d'oïl, it has it ... poetry * Manx poetry * Cornish poetry ...
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World War I Poems
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some treat the world as one simple object while others analyze the world as a complex made up of many parts. In ''scientific cosmology'' the world or universe is commonly defined as " e totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". '' Theories of modality'', on the other hand, talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been. ''Phenomenology'', starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". In ''philosophy of mind'', the world is commonly contrasted with the mind as that which is represented by the mind. ''Th ...
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1918 Poems
This year is noted for the end of the World War I, First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January – 1918 flu pandemic: The "Spanish flu" (influenza) is first observed in Haskell County, Kansas. * January 4 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia, Sweden, German Empire, Germany and France. * January 9 – Battle of Bear Valley: U.S. troops engage Yaqui people, Yaqui Native American warriors in a minor skirmish in Arizona, and one of the last battles of the American Indian Wars between the United States and Native Americans. * January 15 ** The keel of is laid in Britain, the first purpose-designed aircraft carrier to be laid down. ** The Red Army (The Workers and Peasants Red Army) ...
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Poetry By Wilfred Owen
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle. Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poetry, the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', was written in Sumerian. Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese ''Shijing'', as well as religious hymns (the Sanskrit ' ...
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