Abse, Dannie : Not Beautiful

Literature Annotations

Genre	Poem
Keywords	Death and Dying, Physician Experience
Summary	The doctor-speaker sets himself against "saintly" people who always "find the beautiful" in death and disasters. Allowing their "good point," he sides with the view that such things are "not beautiful." He ends with a strongly worded paradox: "[S]ometimes, I think that to curse is more sacred / than to pretend by affirming. And offend."
Commentary	Abse here weighs in on the metaphysics of mortality. It makes a good contribution to a discussion of how doctors and nurses respond personally to the illness, injury, and death their profession exposes them to.
Source	Literature and Medicine 3: 46 (1985)
Publisher	Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
Place Published	Baltimore
Alternate Source	White Coat, Purple Coat: Collected Poems, 1948-1988
Alternate Publisher	Persea
Alternate Edition	1991
Place Published	New York:
Annotated by	Woodcock, John A.
Date of Entry	08/17/01