Suffering for art sake

Jennifer Carroll as Maud. Photo courtesy Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario.

The great English poet and satirist John Donne called it a treasure. French impressionist painter Claude Monet considered it torture. American author Helen Keller said it was an inspiration. Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner claimed humankind could endure vast quantities of it, but that it resulted in greatness. Then there was philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s view of suffering.

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger,” he said.

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