Talk:Ivor Gurney

While the war was likely not the sole cause of Gurney's breakdown, it was also likely to have been a contributing factor. He had been gassed and had been involved in trench warfare. Both of these are dehuamanizing and create stress. Bi-polar incidents can be the result of stress.

Yes, Gurney was in a stressful situation during the war but for him war was actually a stabilizing influence, one that helped him find some level ground at a time when the symptoms of his bi-polar illness were hitting him more frequently. Gurney had suffered bi-polar symptoms in his teens and had already had one documented breakdown before he joined the army. He thought that army life might help him find some stability and shelter from the increasing shifts in mood that he was experiencing. Yes, war was dehumanizing but Gurney thrived on the drama he witnessed and experienced and turned it into art. He had his greatest difficulty when he was away from the battlefield, away from action as he was when he was wounded and later when he was gassed. The idle time in the hospital led to introspection, forced him to be with himself and his personal demons. He needed distractions from himself. Once he was active again, he felt better and being active meant being back in the thick of things. Despite being wounded and gassed in 1917, he was doing well at the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918, high on his relationship with VAD Annie Nelson Drummond, seeing in her a happy future for himself. Then she left him. His world crashed around him. The failure of this relationship triggered the 1918 breakdown, not the war. Not understanding the nature of Gurney's long-standing illnes, his women friends blamed Drummond for the breakdown, one noting that she didn't think "the Drummond girl ever understood what she had done [to Ivor]". Yes, bi-polar incidents are triggered by stress but in Gurney's case the stress was the failure of a relationship coming at a time when he was most vulnerable to sinking into depression -- spring. While it is more heroic to have suffered because of war, the reality is that Gurney's collapse in this instance was triggered by personal emotional trauma i.e. the end of his relationship with Drummond. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottivor (talk • contribs) 14:43, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• I am as sympathetic to Gurney's condition as anyone (and I am also a fan of his poetry, haven't yet heard his music but hope to) but I tire of saying this: it is not up to wikipedia contributors to declare, on the basis of however much private research, what caused Gurney to be declared whatever he was declared to be. Wikipedia is not an outlet for original research, however we might like it to be. This article needs rewriting based on the verifiable public sources, not on what Scottivor thinks was the case. Sorry, but that's what gives the site credibility.

• Incidentally, I think that the article doesn't have nearly enough about Gurney's poetry and the reaction to it, and is weighted too much towards the possible causes of his breakdown. He is surely better known as a poet than as a composer - again, perhaps wrongly, but until 20th century music starts to appreciated by the general public, it will be thus. Lexo (talk) 23:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)