Who was the first tortured poet? Maybe the ancient Egyptian who wrote, sometime in the 15th century BCE, “My beloved stirs my heart with his voice. He causes illness to seize me…. My heart is smitten.” Maybe the poet Catullus, whose heartbreaks lit up ancient Rome: “I hate and love,” he explained in Latin, “and it’s excruciating,” or (depending on the translator) “it crucifies me.” Petrarch’s sonnets, in 14th century Italy, complained that love both scorched and chilled.