`` Requiem `` By Robert Louis Stevenson Essay - 1534 Words

Requiem’s† existence as an Epitaphic fiction, a contrast to life What do you think of when one brings up Robert Louis Stevenson? Perhaps his great works, Treasure Island or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Maybe his successful and adventurous life, full of travel and fame (Editors). What one may not think of is the areas of his life that were wrought with disease, struggle and homesickness. Stevenson’s life was full of adventure, but much of it was as a result of him attempting to escape his tubercular existence (Bosch). The themes presented in Robert Louis Stevenson’s lesser known poem, Requiem, contains what is known as an Epitaphic fiction, a testament of one’s life which contrasts the way in which it was actually lived, a wish of how it should have gone, so to speak. Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem Requiem displays the writer’s wishes to escape from his constant illness and wish return home, in the form of an Epitaphic fiction, an Epitaph con trary to how reality treated its recipient. To begin, Robert Louis Stevenson was born into a middle class family in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1850. He was the middle child of the family who gained most of his attention through his frequent illness (â€Å"Robert†). During the 1800s, a typical means to cure illness was travel, the Stevenson family attempted to cure roberts sickness by traveling Europe (â€Å"Timeline†). These European adventures by the Stevensons led them to many iconic European cities, from Naples to Genoa and from Rome to Innsbruck.Show MoreRelatedThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde1200 Words   |  5 PagesBiography: Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13th, 1850 to (father) Thomas Stevenson and (mother) Margaret Isabella Balfour. Stevenson grew up in Edinburgh. At the age of 17, he enrolled at Edinburgh University where he planned on studying engineering. He instead took courses to study law, and passed all of them in 1875, but he later abandoned this because he wanted to be a writer. His first published work was an essay entitled â€Å"Roads.† Stevenson met his wife