An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Robert Browning
- First Published: 1855
- Type of Work: Epistle/letter in verse
- Genres: Poetry, Epistolary literature
- Subjects: Doctors, Jews or Jewish life, Christianity, Letter writing, Death or dying, Legends, Bible, biblical imagery, or biblical symbolism, Biblical times, Jesus Christ, Letters, Arabs
The Poem
“An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician” is presented in the form of a letter from a garrulous physician to his mentor. Correspondence in the first century c.e. was an uncertain affair: Karshish is entrusting his letter to a Syrian vagabond who promises to deliver it in return for medical treatment.
The document at first has the appearance of a mere historical curiosity, a scrap preserved by chance for nearly two thousand years. Then it becomes apparent that this eccentric “absent-minded professor” had...
[The entire page is 1556 words long]
