Talk:Johann Mayrhofer

Wilhelm Gail's posthumous diagnosis
From Susan Youens, Schubert's Poets and the making of Lieder, p. 152:

'I would diagnose our poet as a "chronic depressive". Not only his moodiness, but above all his responsiveness to external stimuli attest to this diagnosis. Inhibitions, an inferiority complex, in short, the fact that his vital energies were incompatible with his sensitivities was the hallmark of his life and, so it appears to me, also of his poetic works. The further development of his sickly constitution, partly-reactive and partly the result of innate inclinations, led to paranoid and over-valued hypochondriacal notions. Probably in the beginning, a deep depression, not uncommon among such men, led ultimately to a fixed state, becoming suddenly acute when he heard the news of a cholera epidemic in progress, exciting him to the massive anxiety in which the poet killed himself. (A not-uncommon occurrence.)' Double sharp (talk) 15:05, 21 June 2016 (UTC)