Re: Robert E. Howard -- Adilbrand Noblesword's Hall of Warriors

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Date Posted: 12:28:16 06/19/02 Wed
Author: Adilbrand
Subject: Re: Robert E. Howard
In reply to: mvd 's message, "Robert E. Howard" on 11:55:27 06/19/02 Wed

No. No one knows for sure. He has been posthumously diagnosed as bi-polar, schizophrenic, depressed, and several other psychoses. Many people even disagree as to the popular opinion that he was overly attached to his mom. His father, a local doctor, was much surprised by the suicide, I have heard.

L. Sprague de Camp is one of the ones who popularized the idea that he was a bi-polar, oedipus-syndrome inflicted soul. Of course, de Camp often tended to do things that would discredit Howard, so I am not sure how credible that theory really is.

Howard often talked about suicide in his letters, and he tended to romanticize it a bit. True, he killed himself after his mother went into a coma (his mother died after Howard died), and after his dog died, but are these causes or simply chronology. It is a common fallacy to assume that just because something happened prior to another event that the prior thing caused the latter thing, but some evidence does suggest the possibility.

But there is no proof one way or another. Howard never submitted to a psychology exam, and he often talked of killing himself. The events prior to the suicide may have been mere catalysts for someone who already intended to kill himself.

L. Sprague de Camp often liked to catagorize Howard as a raving lunatic who happened upon a single, decent idea (Conan), and that he, de Camp, saved that idea from obscurity. He did his best to suppress all of Howard's other writings.

The "suicide note", of course, does not mention a reason for killing himself, but merely indicated Howard's desire for his own death - something he had long spoken of - and a sense of conviction to at last carry the deed through:

All fled, all done,
So lift me on the pyre:
The feast is over,
The lamps expire.

His closest friends thought him strange, but sane. The debate still goes on whether his mother's impending death was the cause or merely the occasion of his suicide.

Why?

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It just popped into my head this morning -- mvd, 12:38:50 06/19/02 Wed