Thinking about Literature

What is literature? This question will be finessed, as it isn’t asked in what inspired this discourse, an episode of Entitled Opinions titled ‘The Uses of Literature’ (link 1).

Literary theory, a word which in the recent present has had a reactionary wave of hate against it, is represented as standing for dogmatism, presumptuousness and a non-receptive attitude towards literature. Being open and receptive towards literature I believe is a central issue (how does one put their prior experiences and ideas aside and neutrally, justly absorb literature?), yet I don’t think being fond of ideas (deconstruction, whatever that is, queer theory, Marxism, etc.) inevitably diminishes one’s experience of literature. At  the extreme yes a person can let rich, beautiful experiences elude them if they read a book with rigid criteria in mind (like T. S. Eliot reading Hamlet, in my opinion), although I think this is rather rare. Conversely, not everyone need like every piece of literature simply because it is possible for a person to enjoy it. All literature won’t ‘click’ with everyone. The reason, I believe, people tend not to like pieces of literature though is due to  idiosyncratic, particular causes, not allegiance to certain ideas.

I think it is a cheap, simplistic attempt as well to announce oneself as not dogmatic (who doesn’t want to be free from dogma?), opposed to literary theory hence somehow with a ‘get out of prison free’ card, able to read literature with ‘pure’ capacity.

Is there a ‘best way’ to read a text or a passage? This need only be a particular best way for one singular text, hence need not commit the sin of making a ‘grand gesture’, believing in a one specific formula by which all literature one is exposed to is judged.

So how does one approach a piece of literature? Idea: literature teaches us the right approach towards literature.

A reading, in the sense of interpretation, in the sense of a meaning, in the sense of propositional, factual, practical/useful knowledge. Wrong.

The whole idea of looking for meaning (facts) in a literary text is a complete mistake. Right. Literature leads to significances. We get there through words and the sleight of hand of facts, the self-effacement of words reducing to facts, hence the elsewhere (the adjacent feeling, having had one’s mind travel through this strange world of Word with a specific path [the piece of literature], leads to a specific experience and feeling which can produce a sense of importance, significance, like traveling through nature and ending up somewhere which seems like a place, has a ‘placeness’ to it (despite the fact no part of the natural world is by definition a place for humans) and the difference, the singularity is absorbed through one’s being. This is true, as something is in fact singular, different, unique  (to put it factually, each spot on the map has different coordinates), true as the subjective experience of finding something important is true (true in the Kierkegaardian sense), yet false in an ultimate sense as differences are ephemeral and transitory, only existing for a moment in cosmic time, and it is nothingness and the potential for change which exists (positively charged void) and not ‘placeness’  particularity in universality, the individual notes of the song/overarching rhythm. False lastly as significances have no objective, ultimate trueness but are of the individual experiences.

Some texts show that factual meaning doesn’t contribute to life. Philosophy not as a set of ideas but as a way of life.

The reading of certaine literary texts is a spiritual exercise, a fine tuning of certain capacities. We all have these capacities already, but can be more or less, yet literature asks the questions, puts us on the spot, so the point of literature is the complete lack of ambiguity in the immediate experience of reading. Capacities, the meta-theme, takeaway point, vary but some are our capacity for reason (which Plato’s dialogues try to instill us with) and our capacity for figurative thought, being non-literal (Mark’s gospel). Ambiguity is there, but its ancillary, completely there to facilitate the specifics, the crossroads we come across whilst traveling through literature. Making choices while reading literature is linked to the self, as it is the concrete, specific, singular self which chooses something. Self knowledge therefore is available as we can learn something about ourselves about how we traveled through a piece of literature. Self illumination really, as the point is we learn something out ourselves that we never considered in explicit terms or  we reaffirm something about ourselves which we did not believe with absolute certainty (that is, presumptuousness).

Novels tell us things aren’t as easy as we think, and knowledge is hard to come by. We can get facts, but what are facts devoid of much context? Getting sufficient context is much the struggle of life, and when we get to a vantage point of respectable context the facts seem dubious.

Ultimate mystery, final ambiguity to literature. Ambiguity lurks behind things. One cannot look straight into ambiguity nor think ambiguity itself is the takeaway message of something. Ambiguity can become very indulgent. Furthermore, it does decay morality, or rather a respectable context where moral discussions can take place. Furthermore people don’t understand the relationship between ambiguity and art. The ambiguity is the feeling of ambiguity, that we read Hamlet and realise that there is no clear-cut understanding. The point is not that the knowledge itself is ambiguous but that in relation to life (first person experience) there is ambiguity, there is no clearness between forming significances and knowing, or feeling confident with which way to travel in life.

Novels and literature are a reminder that we are opaque and not fully known (and can never be completely known) to ourselves. We have many commitments, thinks which are important to us and we believe in intellectually yet we don’t acknowledge. This is the Freudian revolution, and as with Freud saying it as opposed to artful literature these truths are very hard to acknowledge, because they require us acknowledging we don’t know much (principally about ourselves) and despite knowing that we don’t know much we will go on not knowing much.

Literature is possibility actualised.

Rothko Versus Warhol

In 1958 Mark Rothko accepted to do a series of paintings for an upper class New York restaurant (known as the Seagram murals) (link 1). This series is interesting for what Rothko intended, and in many ways this series is a textbook case of traditional art, the Western canon, the classics.  Rothko said as he was awarded an honorary degree the well known quote “When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing: no galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet it was a golden time, for then we had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, a consumption. Which is better for the world at large, I will not venture to discuss. But I do know that many who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where they can root and grow. We must all hope that they find them” (link 1). It is a very interesting statement, which I think precisely pins down what art has traditionally done, been an activity for the elite and aristocrats (hence an individual experience, not a mainstream phenomenon where one by simple fact of living in a society has a specific relation to things, a default orientation which is bestowed through socialisation). Due to art not being everyday or appropriated but something contingent it could cast much light, it could become a way of life, like a subculture or some other way or life one can get into. Furthermore besides being able to live it fully and not in a part time manner, say, like a tv sitcom where it doesn’t really matter if you miss an episode as you can just watch one or two (i.e. it is no commitment, not a deep stirring routine); you can get sucked into it. To repeat, it could grasp you, which is one of the most unique features of art; its ability for us to find it important and stir our emotions. Philosophy and art are both forms of communication, yet whereas the sort of dry facts approach of philosophy may convince us and have us choose  to remember it art embeds itself in the mind and is much more ready to disregard our volition and tell us what we want.

The verbiage, the economic consumption, the hustle and bustle of daily life never seemed to mesh well with Rothko. They were undignified, profane. It is a curious question why some people put their hands up readily for the 9 to 5 and live the bourgeois life (the term here is morally neutral, just being able to live comfortably and securely) while others insist upon higher and more removed existence from the everyday way of life, like Nietzsche. Yet these questions are for psychology and today I’m not wearing that hat. The point is Rothko wanted to stir primal emotions, things already apart of us and to have us experience a poignant, memorable moment with art (not something forgettable like yesterday’s breakfast). I can’t help but be curious of this drive and think it requires a genealogy, yet thats for another day. Here I think it must be acknowledged that Rothko is the artistic fulfillment of the philosophical tradition of critical philosophy (and Gidden’s idea of reflexivity, which is that we stop and question things more and don’t live via customs) (link 1). This jagged interruption which may be felt in front of a Rothko painting or elsewhere is, I believe, the modern form of revelation. A significant interruption, whereby we reflect and feel questioning about our fundamental routines, grants us the ability to shift tracks and suddenly and strongly find new significances, or revamp old ones. This may complement capitalism, buying the new car at middle age etcetera, but lets save that investigation for another day. Like Dante’s The Divine Comedy we are meant to become lost so we can find ourselves again. Like Homer’s The Odyssey only by risking everything and delving into uncertainty can we come back to some period of stability. Risk and trust, bound together in the event of the interruption are neither a curse nor blessing, yet like Nietzsche I think we must learn to love fate and get the most out of the world we are thrown into (yet like Marxists we don’t have to completely accept circumstances).

Warhol is the king of the everyday. Warhol is a joyful celebration of repetition, that we can buy a bottle of coke anywhere and can expect and enjoy the same taste. So Warhol confronts and portrays the banal in the realm which has historically been left for exceptional things like Christian culture and art that is so impeccably representing a world visibly like ours with immense, unworldly beauty that we experience it with profundity. The result of such an affront to history is itself an interruption which can only happen at certain points in history, like ours with nothing like Warhol prior. We need a history where a Warhol wasn’t imaginable to appreciate the appearance of a Warhol. And then you can only have one Warhol.

Due to it’s originality, bluntly confronting us with objects with see everyday and celebrities who societies rotate around, Warhol’s works make us think. They seem upon first exposure entirely out of place in an art gallery, and this complete war on artistic context, putting a soup can, something that looks like a street advertisement, on a gallery wall makes us question the point. That it makes us think, and often disgruntles as it offers no clear pleasure like a beautiful landscape painting, is unwelcome to many. Furthermore the soup can appears so truly thing-like, the response “this is not art” is often forthcoming. Warhol is also clearly in the tradition of critical philosophy. Like Rothko it interrupts, yet it strikes the mind and the everyday feelings, not deep, primal emotions like what Rothko’s work can produce. Rothko makes us feel (and perhaps think over our lives), Warhol makes us think (and perhaps feel satisfied and playful). They are opposites, yet both seek to break into our ordinary lives (Warhol with ordinariness itself, overloading it, and Rothko with artwork of concentration and extraordinariness).

Post-Warhol irreverence is normal and mainstream culture utilizes satire perhaps more frequently then sincerity. Television was to the middle class and society what Warhol was to art and the elite, with satire, acting, ‘putting on’ becoming acceptable and the knowledge that anything could be undermined with satire becoming a fact of life. Like Nietzsche’s last man, who is intolerant of the different and successful, intolerant of those who confidently and openly strive, is reminiscent of today’s mainstream culture which dislikes the aloof art world and is horrified of being duped, being deceived, being used. That is, the hapless loser of the television sitcom who always has the jokes happen at his or her expense. Furthermore art has been frequently represented by popular culture since Warhol and in contemporary culture with cynical presumptions or jokes with sting, which do seep into people’s orientations towards art and culture. Television stereotypes modern art, with portrayals of pseudo-dadaist or pseudo-abstract work showing it to be by exploitative, elite obscurantists who have no good faith in art and are often just careerists, seeking to make money by making intentionally bad, faddish work. These portrayals show artists’ work which are intentionally confusing, self-indulgently abstract and ambiguous with hollow content and no sincere concern for making art or anything worthwhile (only illusions for the delusional people who pretentiously think they can ‘cultivate’ themselves, as television teaches).

It must be asked: could an artist today make work which ruptures culture and is influential and valued by people at large, which is remembered as Rothko and Warhol are? There is much controversy focused art which has no posterity or integrity like Rothko or Warhol. The question is echoed in literature I believe, as writers commonly question whether they can write important works which will be significantly valued and acknowledged in the future. I think the answer is  yes, yet I am looking at history and know of the spontaneous emergence of art, hence have no firm proof and am also holding on to hope. Radically new art, is it possible? Is it desirable? I don’t know either. I think I desire the new, but capitalism is the great preacher of the new and I am unsure art and culture need such a diet of originality as I might think due to living in a capitalist society (the 20th century alone will take another few hundred years for it’s originality to be fathomed). Warhol made the point that originality has been overrated, calling his art studio a ‘factory’, and I believe he is correct in identifying a fetish with originality, especially in the early 20th century (link 1). Something happened with the rise of the middle class, that many will attend museums, even if just when travelling, and hold opinions regarding art and beauty (even if largely derived from Hollywood movies) . Art is no longer a lonely thing, if anything it feels overpopulated; I know from experience its hard to relate to the Mona Lisa when rows of people always crowd it and cameras flash every few seconds. Yet at the same time you want as many people to be exposed to art as possible. People like Rothko though, and myself on many days, wish people would realise that much of the highest art doesn’t do all the work and it must be realised that the colour combinations of Kandinsky or Van Gogh is musical, and that Bach’s compositions have rhythm with such intense form it resembles mathematics. That Samuel Beckett’s halting, sharp prose is not simply short but intelligently composed and in no way simple. That poetry can be arranged with indented lines, jagged, like they are painted on the page and their visual appearance complements the language. There is no pretentiousness in thinking about art, just a little mediation can unlock such powerful experiences which, loitering, fishing before art and expecting it completely on first impressions to present it’s heights and power misguidedly prevent any real chance to feel the fullest experiences art can provide. People don’t like to think about art because art teaches that you can’t pigeonhole it, have definitive formulas about it. Yet you must think about it, experience art and ask why doesn’t Hamlet confront his uncle the king immediately after witnessing the ghost? Why does he feel melancholy so acutely and so on. Knowing ideas about art have no definitive basis is not enough, that is being objective, and the worth of art is experiencing things for yourself. Knowing that Hamlet has no ‘correct’ ways of reading it because you’ve read it and reacted to it. Humbling yourself and acknowledging ambiguity is not the point.  Sincerely looking for something in the art, letting a certain interpretation run away with your subjective response and then at the end reflecting and knowing Hamlet’s motives still elude you is the truth of the ambiguity of art (because there is truth, and there is ambiguity, dwelling together in art).

So who wins? Rothko and Warhol are made for each other. Despite mass culture and capitalism effectively distributing art and culture, making it possible for artistic greatness from every country on the planet to conveniently reach us we, as individuals, must be open to the art. Some art we all will fairly feel indifferent towards, some art we all fairly even dislike. That goes for mediums and genres as much as for individual pieces. I cannot believe the vast majority of people can only appreciate Hollywood movies,  best-selling fiction, and top of the charts music. Sculpture, theatre, classical music, poetry, fiction, painting, drawing, etching, printing, jazz, ballet, Latin American music, world music, short stories, architecture, conceptual art, opera, dance, instrumental music (piano, strings, brass, guitar, …) and more, this is off the top of my head, must surely be able to fill up the lifetime of a modern person. Even though in art ordinariness has been pressed to the extreme with Warhol and concentrated extraordinariness via non-figurative means with Rothko has been done and cannot be done again I believe art is not exhausted or replete, that there is room for more (often in history view of the future is nearly completely obscured, view of the past is limited visually). Rothko and Warhol necessarily took art into new frontiers, and if Rothko and Warhol did not exist we would have to create them.

The Future of Power

Globalisation. So is power centralising, is the state extending it’s reach in it’s domain, or is it devolving and becoming more diffuse, more spread out? The answer is stuff the general, ask about the particular. The United Kingdom appears to be devolving and spreading out power, whilst Australia appears to be centralising power. May this article provide something to bounce ideas off:

Beyond Nice Nick’s personal triumph, there were two things about yesterday’s TV debate that may end up changing British politics forever.

One is the broad church of the liberal centre-left, or Lib-Lab. Gordon Brown’s “I agree with Nick” was tactical, but also often true. When he said Nick Clegg supported him on democratising parliament, what that meant was that Labour is running to catch up with the Liberals on constitutional reform. One reason David Cameron came off worse was that, again and again, this was two against one, Lib-Lab scissors on the Con in the middle. Sooner or later, this convergence of the liberal centre-left will prevail. And it will, to coin a phrase, break the mould.

The other mould-breaker was revealed not by any of the three would-be PMs, but by ITV’s rather twitchy moderator, Alastair Stewart. As the discussion turned from health to crime to education, he kept reminding viewers that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had their own policies in these areas – and would have their own separate debates. In other words, half of what matters most to most voters has been devolved.

This is something 13 years of New Labour really has changed.

Immediately afterwards, the leaders of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru piled in to point this out. Most people in England have not fully woken up to this yet, but they – we – are waking. A small indication is the fact that English votes for English laws made it into the top five in Power2010’s polling on the political reforms people want. As England awakes, Britain will change.

Nice Nick’s triumph may not last until 6 May, nor translate into more Lib Dem seats under the present electoral system. But if, in 2020, we have a federal Britain with a coalition government, then think back to last night. You first saw it there.

(Source: 1)

The state is having a surprising fight-back, or at least is it dying surprisingly slowly. At least in places of moderate population like Australia states are flexing muscle. Whereas larger populations like the United Kingdom and the United States are becoming allergic to power. It seems that for the polity the world already has enough reality towering over them with the super-sized societies they live in, thus big, even functionally big government is opposed. Novels about the future have feared that governments, the baddies of old, will ride again and once more be a concern when they wield more power. I believe the opposite is true. Whilst history is poorly remembered by people and the possibility of repeat is still on the table I think circumstance will stop repeats of large governments running amuck. Asia is not being discussed here, and the existence of Asian authoritarianism is another kettle or fish. No country in Europe or North America is going to have power run amuck towards its people, foreigners quite possibly, but state tyranny by politically stable, advanced economies seems gone. The political systems just seem unable to cultivate a muscular, concern meriting state. The concern with the future lies with the ‘too big to fail’, the economic deadweight, the corporations. Economies of scale is becoming something of a joke. Wasting time reading esoterica I can report that ‘on the whole, therefore, the advantages of diversification beyond [‘too big to fail’] scales achieved by, say, the largest 100 U.S. financial institutions appear to be either unproved or modest’ (source: Scherer, F. M.(2010), ‘ A Perplex Economist Confronts ‘Too Big to Fail”, Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Research Working Paper Series). Point being, bigger isn’t always better. Competition is better. Especially better than the insular environment of an oligarch market, with its insidious cooperation. To hammer the point down “one of the big failures that the recent global financial crisis has exposed is that we allowed financial institutions to grow ‘too big to fail’. Not only may such large institutions be able to exploit market power, but they also pose systemic risk to the economy and have perverse incentives that encourage such behavior. Institutions that grow too big to fail inevitably know that if they undertake high-risk activities and fail, governments will pick up the pieces, but if they succeed, they walk away with the gains” (source: Stiglitz, J. (2009), ‘Regulation and Failure’ in New Perspectives on Regulation, (eds.) Moss, D.A, Cisternino, J. A.). The funny thing is the learn nothing environment. The financial field, to use Bourdieuian terminology, has learned yet it doesn’t look like the political field, or the person on the street has learned a thing. The strange realm of the economy seems to grow, along with it corporations. I have seen no initiatives to cap or limit corporation growth. I am skeptical there are initiatives to reward growth in a competitive manner and to encourage long term sustainable economic growth.

Will corporations better themselves, are we too cynical? One would be mislead to ignore the seemingly positive direction of more equal employment, more job satisfaction and more positive, happier business culture. The problem is the limited momentum of growth and the limited scope of that growth. It doesn’t seem like corporations are going to cultivate themselves sufficiently. Shit world, but not the end of the world.

As traditional state power withers in largely populated societies and sphere of economics pervades, as economics naturally spreads and pervades with virus like efficiency, it looks like a future of untamed corporations and inept nation states scolding these giants, who never stop and consider repentance. This isn’t the fault of any isolation agent. Corporations deserve blame for their ills, political parties deserve blame for failed governance and significantly citizens deserve blame for limited conscientious consumption and limited involvements in the public sphere (realm of discussion about society with concrete action ideas and policies).

Pettiness, Doctors and Buying Stuff

Disjointed notes.

Politics is so congested these days. Why is every inch so important? That is, why in the US is every bill bulwarked by the Republicans & Australia angry over every boat of a few refugees where the middle decades of the 20th century didn’t have such pettiness. How is pettiness in tread, what causes it? Has politics become so professionalised they can afford to bother now, or is it something else like the 24 hour news cycles and sound byte influence of politicians (in reporting)?

Portrayals of therapists and doctors in recent decades have them getting involved with their patients & so on. There are no neutral observers, or it is not believed that there are neutral observers. Also, it is not even portrayed that they have average, humdrum  interests and emotions but it is rather that they have juicy, sinister motivations. Objectiveness, or rather seeming objectiveness, is instinctively assumed to be a put own and is wholeheartedly reversed (suspicion overdosing once again).

Postmodernity/contemporary society: It is highly consumerist, is it hypercapitalist, i.e., does it mean we are in a full blown state of capitalism, or conversely are we in ‘hyper-consumerism’, we’re people consume without production, like the internet where there is infinite use for really no maximal profit rate. A state where no material, no real production of goods and services holds people hostage to doing what they do. Another point, given that we are in a post-industrial society, i.e. most Western (even most advanced economies) are mostly service sector with little manufacturing and industry, how important are means of production, i.e. concrete property and capital, where people can make hundreds of millions for thinking of a website idea, or making successful youtube videos (virtual goods and services, culture and entertainment, not material things like food and drink and things but more symbolic and significantly more untameable by capitalism).

The 20th Century, Art and Death

The 20th century had what must be the highest amount of suicides amongst writers and artists in general for a century. A morose atmosphere was present from the start to finish (even though there was a definite optimism in the Victorian era, artists, I find this true for much of history, had sensibilities which touched upon where history was heading and were morose), yet what it means for art and artists to lose spirit and the will to live is uncertain. I believe it shows incredible duress on a society when it loses ability to express itself and exclaim what it finds important, with the suicide of artists being real symptom of this duress.

Theodor Adorno famously said ‘to still write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric’. Interestingly two of the most important and influential names in fiction and poetry in the post war period, Samuel Beckett and Paul Celan respectively, emphasised silence and the inherent inaptitude of human expression. After the savages of the Second World War unaltered, simple and pure art seemed impossible (apart from a few die hards like Ezra Pound many artists after the First World War were also emphasising affected, shaken up and impure art). Even though Adorno retracted the statement saying ‘perennial suffering has as much right to expression as the tortured have to scream… hence it may have been wrong to say that no poem could be written after Auschwitz’ it does seem the case that in the epoch of the Second World War and the century of barbarism, of which those born around my period of the 1980s are past, there was a zeitgeist which strained art. Symptomatically in a world gone mad those pursuing the sublime took their own lives.

This list of writers who committed suicide is bound to be incomplete, it may be updated time and again, yet it simply illustrates the 20th century and speaks pretty clearly that art seemed eclipsed and perhaps gone for ever during the 20th century.

• John Davidson (1857 – 1909), Scottish poet
• Georg Trakl (1887 – 1914), Austrian poet
• Vladimir Mayakovski (1893 – 1930), Russian poet
• Vachel Lindsay (1879 – 1931), American poet
• Hart Crane (1899 – 1932), American poet
• Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933), American poet
• Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941), English writer
• Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942), Austrian writer
• Ross Lockridge (1914 – 1938), American writer
• Klaus Mann (1906 – 1949), German writer
• Cesare Pavese (1908 – 1950), Italian writer
• Malcolm Lowry (1909 – 1957), English writer
• Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961), American writer
• Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963), American poet
• Charles Jackson (1903 – 1968), American writer
• John Kennedy Toole (1937 – 1969), American writer
• Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970), Japanese writer
• Yasunari Kawabata (1899 – 1972), Japanese writer
• John Berryman (1914 – 1972), American poet
• Romain Gary (1914 – 1980), French writer
• Arthur Koestler (1905 – 1983), Hungarian writer
• Jerzy Kosinski (1933 – 1991), Polish writer
• Jack London (1876 – 1916), English writer
• Sergei  Yesenin (1895 – 1925), Russian poet
• Charlotte Mew (1869 – 1928), English poet
• Ernst Toller (1893 – 1939), German playwright
• Stuart Engstrand (1904 – 1955), American writer
• Paul Celan (1920 – 1970), German poet
• Henry de Montherlant (1895 – 1972), French writer
• William Inge (1913 – 1973), American playwright
• Richard Brautigan (1935 – 1984), American writer
• Primo Levi (1919 – 1987), Italian writer
• Bruno Bettelheim (1903 – 1990), Austrian writer
• Michael Dorris (1945 – 1997), American writer
• George Sterling (1869 – 1926), American poet
• Harry Crosby (1898 – 1929), American poet
• Robert E. Howard (1906 – 1936), American writer
• Thomas Heggen (1918 – 1949), American writer
• Louis Verneuil (1893 – 1952), French playwright
• Winfield T. Scott (1910 – 1968), American poet
• Tom McHale (1941 – 1983), American writer
• James Tiptree (1915 – 1987), American writer
• Ryunosuke Akutagwa (1892 – 1927), Japanese writer
• Sandor Marai (1900 – 1989), Hungarian writer
• Harry Martinson (1904 – 1978), Swedish poet
• Stig Dagerman (1923 – 1954), Swedish poet
• Tadeusz Borowski (1922 – 1951), Polish writer
• Sadeq Hedayat (1903 – 1951), Iranian writer
• Sarah Kane (1971 – 1999), English playwright
• Jean Amery (1912 – 1978), Austrian writer
• Reinaldo Arenas (1943 – 1990), Cuban writer
• Andres Caicedo (1951 – 1977), Colombian writer
• Ana Cristina Cesar (1952 – 1983), Brazilian poet
• Robin Hyde (1906 – 1939), New Zealander poet
• Attila Jozsef (1905 – 1937), Hungarian poet
• Jochen Klepper (1903 – 1942), German writer
• Mario de Sa-Carneiro (1890 – 1916), Portuguese writer
• Emilio Salgari (1862 – 1911), Italian writer
• Anne Sexton(1928 – 1974), American poet
• Eli Siegel (1902 – 1978), Latvian poet
• Edward Stachura (1937 – 1979), Polish poet
• Marina Tsvetaeva (1892 – 1941), Russian poet
• Juhan Viiding (1948 – 1995), Estonian poet
• Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885 – 1939), Polish writer
• B. S. Johnson (1933 – 1973), English writer
• Margaret Laurence (1926  – 1987), Canadian writer
• Ann Quin (1936 – 1973), English writer
• Marek Hlasko (1934 – 1969), Polish writer
• Kurt Tucholsky (1890 – 1935), German writer
• Jose Maria Arguedas (1911 – 1969), Peruvian writer
• Leopoldo Lugones (1874 – 1938), Argentine writer
• Horacio Quiroga (1878 – 1937), Uruguayan writer
• Alejandra Pizarnik (1936 – 1972), Argentine poet
• Alfonsina Storni (1892 – 1938), Argentine poet
• Marta Lynch (1925 – 1985), Argentine writer
• Menno Ter Braak (1902 – 1940), Dutch writer
• Eddy du Perron (1899 – 1940), Dutch poet
• Karin Boye (1900 – 1941), Swedish poet
• Ingrid Jonker (1933 – 1965), South African poet
• Ambrose Bierce (1842 – 1914), American writer [uncertain]
• Randall Jarrell (1914 – 1965), American poet [uncertain]
• Mario de Sa Carneiro (1890 – 1916), Portuguese poet
• Geza Csath (1887 – 1919), Hungarian writer
• Rene Crevel (1900 – 1935), French writer
• Gu Cheng (1956 – 1993), Chinese writer
• Osamu Dazai (1909 – 1948), Japanese writer
• Adela Florence Nicolson (1865 – 1904), English poet
• Albert Wass (1908 – 1998), Hungarian writer
• Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeyev (1901 – 1954), Russian writer
• Amelia Rosselli (1930 – 1996), Italian poet
• Andre Paiement (1950 – 1978), Canadian playwright
• Annie M. G. Schmidt (1911 – 1995), Dutch writer
• Arthur Adamov (1908 – 1970), French playwright
• Ashihei Hino (1907 – 1960), Japanese writer
• Beatrice Hastings (1879 – 1943), English writer
• Bizan Kawakami (1869 – 1908), Japanese writer
• Branko Miljkovic (1934 – 1961), Serbian poet [uncertain]
• Branko Copic (1915 – 1984), Serbian & Bosnian writer
• Breece D’J Pancake (1952 – 1979), American writer
• Cale Young Rice (1872 – 1943), American poet
• Carlo Michelstaedter (1887 – 1910), Italian writer
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 – 1935), American writer
• Charmian Clift (1923 – 1969), Australian writer
• Danielle Collobert (1940 – 1978), French writer
• D. A. Levy (1942 – 1968), American poet
• Dhan Gopal Mukerji (1890 – 1936), Indian writer
• Dillwyn Parrish (1894 – 1941), American writer
• Don Carpenter (1931 – 1995), American writer
• Dragos Protopopescu (1892 – 1948), Romanian writer
• Edappally Raghavan Pillai (1909 – 1936), Malayalam poet
• Edward Lucas White (1866 – 1934), American writer
• Elise Cowen (1933 – 1962), American poet
• Erik Lindegren (1910 – 1968), Swedish writer
• Ernest Borneman (1915 – 1995), German writer
• Ernst Weiss (1882 – 1940), German writer
• Eugene Marais (1871 – 1936), South African writer
• Felipe Trigo (1864 – 1916), Spanish writer
• Fletcher Knebel (1911 – 1993), American writer
• Frank Stanford (1948 – 1978), American poet
• Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey (1861 – 1922), American writer
• Gennady Shpalikov (1937 – 1974), Russian poet
• George Caragonne (1965 – 1995), American writer
• Gert Prokop (1932 – 1994), German writer
• Gertrude Bell (1868 – 1926), English writer
• Guy Gilpatric (1896 – 1950), American writer
• H. Beam Piper (1904 – 1964), American writer
• Ham Fisher (1900 – 1955), American writer
• Hans Leybold (1892 – 1914), German poet
• Harry Thurston Peck (1856 – 1914), American writer
• Helene Migerka (1867 – 1928), Austrian writer
• Hidemitsu Tanaka (1913 – 1949), Japanese writer
• Hollister Noble (1900 – 1954), American writer
• Hubert Aquin (1929 – 1977), Canadian writer
• Alfred Kerr (1867 – 1948), German writer
• Inge Muller (1925 – 1966), German poet
• Ivana Brlic Mazuranic (1874-1938), Croatian writer
• Jacques Rigaut (1898 – 1929), French poet
• James Leo Herlihy (1927 – 1993), American writer
• James Robert Baker (1946 – 1997), American writer
• Jane Arden (1927 – 1982), Welsh-English writer
• Jarl Hemmer (1893 – 1944), Finish-Swedish poet
• Jean Joseph Rabearivelo (1901 – 1937), Malagasy poet
• Jens Bjorneboe (1920 – 1976), Norwegian writer
• Joel Lehtonen (1881 – 1934), Finnish writer
• John Gould Fletcher (1886 – 1950), American poet
• John Monk Saunders (1897 – 1940), American writer
• John O’Brien (1960 – 1994), American writer
• John Patrick (1905 – 1995), American playwright
• Julien Torma (1902 – 1933), French writer
• Kaan Ince (1970 – 1992), Turkish writer
• Konstantin Chkheidze (1897 – 1974), Georgian-Russian writer
• Lao She (1899 – 1966), Chinese writer
• Leicester Hemingway (1915 – 1982), American writer
• Lew Welch (1926 – 1971), American poet
• Liviu Rebreanu (1885 – 1944), Romanian writer
• Louis Adamic (1899 – 1951), Slovene writer
• Merton Hodge (1903 – 1958), New Zealander playwright
• Michael Strunge (1958 – 1986), Dannish poet
• Orrick Glenday Johns (1887 – 1946), American poet
• Peter George (1924 – 1966), English writer
• Phillippe Jullian (1921-1977), French writer
• Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (1893 – 1945), French writer
• Qiu Miaojin (1969 – 1995), Chinese writer
• R. H. Barlow (1918 – 1951), American writer
• Raymond Andrews (1934 – 1991), American writer
• Rex Ellington Beach (1877 – 1949), American writer
• Richard Glazar (1920 – 1997), Czech writer
• Roger Miliot (1927 – 1968), French poet
• Roger-Arnould Riviere (1930 – 1959), French poet
• Rudolf Tesnohlidek ( 1882 – 1928), Czech writer
• Ernst Runar Schildt (1888 – 1925), Finnish writer
• Sanmao (1943 – 1991), Chinese writer
• Stephen Haggard (1911 – 1943), English writer
• Takeo Arishima (1878 – 1923), Japanese writer
• Tamiki Hara (1905 – 1951), Japanese writer
• Torquato Neto (1944 – 1972) Brazilian poet
• Tove Ditlevsen (1917 – 1976), Danish poet
• Unica Zurn (1916 – 1970), German writer
• Urmuz (1883 – 1923), Romanian writer
• Vilhelm Moberg (1898 – 1973), Swedish writer
• Wally Wood (1927 – 1981), American writer
• Walter Hasenclever (1890 – 1940), German writer
• Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1923 – 1996), American writer
• William Lindsay Gresham (1909 – 1962), American writer
• William Seabrook (1884 – 1945), American writer
• Yves Navarre (1940 – 1994), French writer
• Sarah Kofman (1934 – 1994), French writer