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"Ironywaves" <ironywaves@knology.net> wrote in message news:<vrfaafme0s319a@corp.supernews.com>...
> "The poet makes himself a visionary through a long, a prodigious and
> rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of
> suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the
> poisons in him, keeping only their quintessences . . ." --Arthur Rimbaud
>
> Inspiration for the following list of dead literary figures came from
> Charles Bukowski’s poem "Beasts bounding through time,"
> specifically the lines "Sylvia [Plath] with her head in the oven like
> a baked potato . . . Shakespeare a plagiarist . . . the impossibility
> of being human." Some may call it morbid, some may call it truth -
> either way I don’t give a damn.
>
>  Euripides [480-406 B.C.] Greek Playwright - Mauled by a pack
> of wild dogs owned by Archelaus, the King of Macedonia.
>
>  Dante Alighieri [1256-1321] Italian Poet - Fell ill and died
> about an hour after completing The Divine Comedy.
>
>  Francis Villon [1431-1464?] French Poet - May have been
> attacked by a mob of bandits or hanged by authorities after a brief
> prison stay for murdering a priest. Take your pick. Left France at the
> age of 32 and was never heard from again. "Where are the snows of
> yesteryear?"
>
>  Christopher Marlowe [1564-1593] English Playwright - Stabbed
> with a dagger during a bar fight at the inn of the Widow Bull in
> Deptford. Was it an argument over the bill?
>
>  Richard Lovelace [1618-1658] English Poet - Believed to have
> died of consumption "in a very mean lodging" in Gunpowder Alley, Shoe
> Lane. "I could not love thee, dear, so much/Loved I not honour more."
>
>  Thomas Chatterton [1752-1770] English Poet - Killed self by
> drinking arsenic at the age of 17. Apparently in despair over lack of
> recognition. Gained popularity after death. [Editor’s Note:
> Chatterton’s father was well known around town for a rather
> dubious talent - he could put his entire fist in his mouth.]
>
>  Lord Byron [1788-1824] English Poet - Killed by doctors
> during a "blood letting" attempt to cure malarial fever. Last words:
> "I must sleep now."
>
>  Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] English Poet - Drowned while
> sailing near Spezia, Italy, and was cremated on the beach.
> [Editor’s Note: Shelley’s heart wouldn’t burn and
> was given to his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley as a souvenir.]
>
>  Honore De Balzac [1799-1850] French Author - Believed to have
> choked on too much coffee.
>
>  Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849] American Author - Died of "acute
> congestion of the brain" several days after he was discovered lying
> unconscious in a Baltimore street, wearing someone else’s
> tattered clothes.
>
>  Leo Tolstoy [1828-1910] Russian Author - Gave away entire
> fortune, froze to death in a railroad station on a cold winter night.
>
>  Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914?] American Author - Disappeared in
> Mexico while reporting on the Pancho Villa’s rebellion. May have
> been murdered by bandits.
>
>  Arthur Rimbaud [1854-1891] French Poet - A probable victim of
> syphilis, had right leg amputated, became paralyzed and gradually
> slipped into permanent coma.
>
>  Lionel Johnson [1867-1902] British Poet - Fell off a barstool
> during a bout of heavy drinking, according to legend.
>
>  Alfred Jarry [1873-1907] French Dramatist - Paralyzed in both
> legs at the age of 34. Last request was for a toothpick.
>
>  Sherwood Anderson [1876-1941] American Author - Complications
> of peritonitis in Colon, Panama, after ingesting a toothpick along
> with a hors d’oeuvre at a cocktail party.
>
>  Jack London [1876-1916] American Author - A "raging
> alcoholic," died of uremia brought on by a morphine overdose at the
> age of 40.
>
>  Vachel Lindsay [1879-1931] American Poet - Killed self by
> drinking disinfectant.
>
>  Virginia Woolf [1882-1941] British Author & Critic - Filled
> pockets with stones and drowned self in the river Ouse.
>
>  Franz Kafka [1883-1924] - Died of tuberculosis and was buried
> in Prag-Straschintz. Had requested that all of his work be destroyed
> after his death.
>
>  Ezra Pound [1885-1972] - Arrested for treason after World War
> II for broadcasting Fascist propaganda, declared mentally ill and
> committed to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington D.C. Released in
> 1958 and died a semi-recluse in Italy. [Editor’s Note: Born in
> Hailey, Idaho, Pound’s middle name was Loomis.]
>
>  Maxwell Bodenheim [1893-1954] American Author - Shot with a
> .22 rifle by an insane dishwasher.
>
>  Sergei Esenin [1895-1925] Russian Poet - Cut wrists, wrote a
> final poem in own blood (called "Do svidania drug moi" or "Goodbye my
> friend") and hanged self in a hotel room in Leningrad.
>
>  F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940] American Author - Legendary
> boozer suffered a heart attack while working as a screenwriter in
> Hollywood for a couple of hundred bucks a week. According to John
> O’Hara, Fitz died "a prematurely old little man haunting
> bookshops unrecognized." [Editor’s Note: Zelda died in a fire at
> an Asheville, North Carolina, mental hospital in 1948.]
>
>  William Faulkner [1897-1962] American Author - Suffered a
> heart attack after falling off a horse.
>
>  Hart Crane [1899-1932] American Poet - While en route to New
> York aboard the S.S. Orizaba, leapt into the Caribbean Sea; reputedly
> said "Good-bye everybody."
>
>  Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961] American Author - Blew brains
> out with a hunting rifle in Ketchum, Idaho.
>
>  Thomas Wolfe [1900-1938] American Author - Suffered a
> cerebral infection, leaving an eight-foot-high manuscript for his
> editors to sort through. Buried in Riverside Cemetery, Asheville,
> North Carolina. ". . . the last voyage, the longest, the best."
>
>  Nathanael West [1903-1940] American Author - Car accident
> killed West and his wife after he ignored a stop sign. His buddy, F.
> Scott Fitzgerald, died the same weekend.
>
>  Robert E. Howard [1906-1936] Sword & Sorcery Writer - Spent
> all-night vigil at bedside of comatose mother and died of
> self-inflicted gunshot in the morning; mother died that same night.
>
>  Malcolm Lowry [1909-1957] British Author - A "sleeping-pill
> suicide," fell dead with a plate in hand while starting in on a
> midnight snack, according to writer Donald Newlove. ". . . and how
> alike are the groans of love, to those of dying."
>
>  Tennessee Williams [1911-1983] American Playwright - Choked
> on a bottle cap while trying to get hands on some barbiturates.
>
>  Albert Camus [1913-1960] French Author - Single-car
> automobile crash while returning to Paris from the South of France.
>
>  John Berryman [1914-1972] American Poet - Jumped from a
> bridge over the Mississippi River; reputedly waved at passersby on way
> down.
>
>  Dylan Thomas [1914-1953] Welsh Poet - Alcohol poisoning
> during a lecture tour of the United States. "I’ve had 18
> straight whiskies . . . I think that’s the record."
>
>  Roland Barthes [1915-1980] French Critic & Philosopher - Run
> over by laundry truck outside the College de France. "Literature is
> the question minus the answer."
>
>  Jack Kerouac [1922-1969] American Author - Abdominal
> haemorrhage at mother’s home in St. Petersburg, Florida, while
> watching "The Galloping Gourmet."
>
>  Flannery O’Connor [1924-1964] American Author - Became
> gradually immobilised by lupus and died at the age of 40.
>
>  Yukio Mishima [1925-1970] Japanese Author - Committed seppuku
> (hara-kiri) and was beheaded during failed attempt to overtake a
> Japanese garrison.
>
>  Anne Sexton [1928-1974] American Poet - Committed suicide by
> carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of her home.
>
>  Sylvia Plath [1932-1963] American Poet - Stuck head in a
> kitchen oven.
>
>  Jerzy Kosinski [1933-1991] Polish-Born American Author -
> Think he committed suicide by placing a plastic bag over his head in
> the bathtub. [Can anyone else confirm this?]
>
>  Richard Brautigan [1935-1984] American Author -
> Self-inflicted gunshot wound; body wasn’t discovered for several
> weeks.
>
>  Seth Morgan [1949-1990] American Author - Rode motorcycle off
> the Golden Gate Bridge and into the San Francisco Bay.
>
>  John O’Brien [1961?-1997?] American Author - Committed
> suicide just two weeks after selling the movie rights to
> "autobiographical novel" Leaving Las Vegas. Book served as suicide
> note. [Editor’s Note: Couldn’t find the actual dates of
> his birth and death. Anyone out there know?]
>
> ". . . [The poet] arrives at the unknown: and even if, half crazed, in
> the end, he loses the understanding of his visions, he has seen them!
> Let him be destroyed in his leap by those unnameable, unutterable and
> innumerable things: there will come other horrible workers: they will
> begin at the horizons where he has succumbed." --Arthur Rimbaud
>
> Roundtable

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