Two pathographies: a study in illness and literature

This study compares two autobiographical descriptions of illness--the seventeenth-century John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and the twentieth-century Cornelius and Kathryn Ryan's A Private Battle. I begin by identifying the basic structure in both narratives as parallel to that of the case history, and then show how each individual's experience is shaped by the conditions of illness appropriate to their respective cultures. Lastly, I discuss the way in which both authors understand and represent sickness, as well as their respective therapies, in terms of a particular metaphoric construct: for Donne, it is the analogy between illness of the body and illness of the soul; for Ryan it is the analogy between illness and war. The stance of each towards his illness is conditioned by this metaphoric model: Donne's is one of acceptance, of conforming to the will of God; Ryan's is one of resistance, of fighting heroically until the very end. Thus these metaphors are functional as well as aesthetic: they serve as figural modalities whereby the patient/author hopes to transcend his illness.