“THE PHYSICIAN”

This 1933 song from Nymph Errant, made famous by the legendary Gertrude Lawrence, describes the plight of a shy patient infatuated with a healthcare practitioner. Or is it the other way around? The racy imagery and naughty language have titillated audiences for decades, awaiting a deconstructed reinterpretation by a male, Yale-educated physician, perhaps the unexpressed wish of the composer.

“I BOUGHT ME A CAT”

"I Bought Me a Cat" is a children's song from the mid-1800's, arranged a century later by the distinguished composer Aaron Copland. The unnamed farmer who narrates the story describes all his beloved barnyard animals with their humorously familiar noises. Unfortunately, the relative peace and quiet is shattered by the arrival of one species too many!

"THE SURGEON AT 2 A.M"

Sylvia Plath is an iconic figure to lovers of American poetry. Her insights, mastery of language, and unique take on the human condition have made her fame increase exponentially since her untimely and tragic death at the age of thirty. “The Surgeon at 2 A.M.” describes a doctor making rounds on his ward and reflecting on the machinery that constitutes the human body. Plath’s expressionless prose dovetails perfectly with the apparent coldness needed for a surgeon to perform his tasks.

“THE SAILOR'S TANGO”

Two theater giants combined their talents memorably in several landmark musicals including Happy End, the source for this haunting 1929 ballad of doomed sailors. The hypnotic tango rhythms frame an eternal dance of death between all living things and the inexorable forces of nature. An interplay between Brecht‘s fatalism and Weill’s pungent harmonics makes this song a unique and unforgettable masterpiece.

“TO HIS COY MISTRESS”

This masterpiece of British verse, typical of 17th Century meta- physical poets, points the way to neoclassical literature and Romanticism. The narrator, whom modern audiences might describe as "horny", uses profound philosophy, erotic imagery, and testosterone-infused salesmanship to seduce his girlfriend. Life is too short, so why waste time when love is so much fun?

“LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD”

Physical diagnosis, especially as applied to interspecies anatomical differences, plays a pivotal role in this 1812 thriller. A brave act of emergency surgery rescues our two heroines from certain death by pancreatic enzymes.

“THE WOUND DRESSER”

As a nurse in the Civil War, the legendary poet witnessed horrors and tragedies unknown to modern civilization. Reflecting back several decades later, he reminisces in this poem about his own experiences as a comforter of the sick and a healer of the wounded.

“KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915”

This hypnotically effective prose-poem describes the sights, sounds, and smells of a sultry evening in the South. It serves as a prologue to A Death in the Family, a masterpiece by James Agee. Here, a child narrates a scenario of habitual activities as night descends on a small community of families. He is confronted ultimately by an unanswerable question, namely “What is the nature of existence?”

THE CANTERBURY TALES: “PROLOGUE: THE DOCTOR OF MEDICINE”

Although it was written 400 years ago, Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous poem resonates with modern audiences. The doctor described has many features in common with his modern colleagues. Dr. Fischer begins this selection by reciting the opening passages in the original Middle English.

ULYSSES: CHAPTER 14, “OXEN OF THE SUN”

In this linguistically dazzling sequence from James Joyce’s 1922 masterpiece, medical students at a Dublin maternity hospital discuss obstetrics, birth defects, and human pathology while drinking themselves into incoherent intoxication. The chapter also mirrors the 40-week development of the human fetus (and the English language itself), from conception (in pseudo-Latin and non-grammatical Anglo-Saxonish outbursts) through embryological development (lengthy rantings in the style of famous British writers) to birth (in modern American, Irish, and nonsensical slang). This literary roller-coaster ride is unique in Western prose, an opaque, challenging, and hilarious masterpiece.

DEATH IN VENICE

Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella combines erotic passion, post- Romantic angst, and lethal infectious disease, describing the tormented writer Gustav von Aschenbach’s fateful trip to the Italian port. In this set of scenes, he is troubled by suspicious words from a street musician (the Angel of Death?) and rushes to a tourist agency, only to discover horrifying news.

“YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM”

Lewis Carroll’s famed nursery rhyme is a debate of sorts between Youth and Age, one that both children and adults can enjoy. During a 1981 visit to Oxford University (where Carroll taught) Dr. Fischer was taken by a mathematics professor to the actual rabbit hole that is the entrance to Alice’s “Wonderland”!

GHOSTS

A masterpiece of modern theater and a shocking melodrama at the same time, Ghosts confronts the duplicitous hypocrisy hiding behind Victorian morality. A Norwegian widow knew that her late husband was promiscuous, but she now learns that he contracted syphilis and transmitted this incurable infection to her only son, Oswald. In this scene, the young man describes his failing health, accepts his horrible fate, and asks his mother to do the unthinkable. Ibsen’s “ghosts” are not spectral spirits but delusions and philosophical myths that provide a false sense of security—especially where fatal venereal diseases are concerned.

“KUBLA KHAN; OR, A VISION IN A DREAM”

Considered to be among the most beautiful poems in the English language, this reverie about the Mongol emperor and his kingdom has been thought by some controversial scholars to be an actual hallucination. Coleridge was addicted to medically prescribed laudanum (a liquid form of opium) and his dazzling visions may have been stimulated by endorphin receptors as well as the Romantic Era’s obsession with exotica, erotica, and the wilds of nature.

“AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE”

William Blake, the visionary and mystical British poet, was the ultimate Romantic, obsessed with religion, torn by conflicting emotions, and awed by the wilds of nature. His poetry is totally unique, a psychedelic “stream-of-consciousness” superimposed on an infrastructure of Biblical ethics.

“Auguries of Innocence” (1803) describes the world through contrasts: youth and age, life and death, slaughter and salvation, and the apparent randomness with which we begin our lives.

UNCLE VANYA

Written by a physician (Chekhov was a general practitioner) Uncle Vanya is a bittersweet story of unrequited love and social isolation. The playwright speaks to us through the character of Doctor Astrov, a world-weary soul whose love of humanity seems at odds with his cynical view of “modern” life. The environment is being ruined, life is short, and relationships are difficult—as true today as in 1891 when the play was written.

VOLPONE

This 1606 comedy, first performed at the Globe Theater, is a merciless satire of Venetian society overrun by the seven deadly sins. Volpone (“The Big Fox”) attempts to outwit and defraud several prominent citizens by convincing them that he doesn’t have long to live. After gazing wildly at his stash of gold coins, he welcomes a possible “heir”, going through the throes of several imaginary illnesses until soothed by the sound of more money.

WOYZECK

This 1837 masterpiece, considered a forerunner of 20th century drama, traces the downward spiral of an unfortunate soldier whose forced degradation and broken home drive him to commit murder. A crazed doctor is experimenting on Woyzeck to see the effect of a diet that consists solely of peas. And Woyzeck’s common law wife, bored by days of baby-sitting, has eyes for the handsome Drum Major.

"THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE"

Robert Louis Stevenson, whose novels have endeared him to generations of readers, was often confined to bed at a young age and unable to attend school.  This explains the extreme emotions and tenderness in two of his poems, “The Land of Counterpane” and “The Sick Child”, here conjoined for the first time.  Counterpane is the quilted material used as a bedspread or blanket, the ideal location for imaginary battles between toy soldiers.  The delirious effects of fever can indeed spark a child’s imagination as well as a mother’s concern and warmth.