Death and literature: Different approaches, from simplicity to obscurity

John Skelton

Abstract


This study looks briefly at a range of ways in which writers have approached the concept of death, from expressions of personal grief, through to the ways in which attitudes to death represented in a culture are also picked up and used by writers from the culture concerned. Writers considered are mostly (but not all) from the English and Spanish language traditions, and in particular Seamus Heaney, Thomas Hardy, Miguel de Cervantes and Federico García Lorca. The point is made that not all writing about death is centred on death as a source of personal grief, though a great deal is. Also considered is the way in which some writing about death is transparent, and in a sense overtly simple, while other writing is less so, and may even seem obscure.

Keywords


death; literature; medical humanities; grief; approaches to dying

Full Text: PDF

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.8.10567

References


Camus, A. (2012). The outsider.London: Penguin.

Catullus. (n. d.). Catullus 65. Retrieved 22 July 2017, from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Catullus_65.

Cervantes, M. (1999). El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Retrieved July 22, 2017, from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2000/2000-h/2000-h.htm#2_lxxiv.

Cervantes, M. (2004). Don Quixote. Retrieved July 22, 2017, from http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/996/pg996.html.

Eliot, V., & Haffenden, J. (Eds). 2014. The letters of T. S. Eliot, vol 5: 1930–31. London: Faber. 

García Lorca, F. (1974). Teoría y juego del duende. Romance sonámbulo. In A. del Hoyo, (Ed.), Obras completas vol. 1 (pp. 1067–1082, p. 1085). Madrid: Aguilar. 

García Lorca, F. (2015). Romancero gitano. Poema del cante jondo. Poesía completa II. Barcelona: DeBolsillo.

Hardy, T. (1994). After a journey. In M. Irwin (Ed.). The collected poems of Thomas Hardy. Ware: Wordsworth Poetry Library. 

Heaney, S. (1987). Clearances. In S. Heaney, The Haw lantern. London: Faber and Faber.

Johnson, S. (1986). On the death of Dr. Robert Levet. In J. D. Fleeman (Ed.), Samuel Johnson: the complete English poems. Yale: Yale University Press. 

Kellehear, A. (Ed.). (2009). The study of dying: From autonomy to transformation. Cambridge. University Press. 

O’Driscoll, D. (2008). Growing into poetry. In D. O’Driscoll (Ed.), Interviews with Seamus Heaney(p. 39). London: Faber and Faber.

Salinas, P. (1955). Lorca and the poetry of death. Carleton Drama Review, 1(2), 14–21.

Sensitivity to things. (n.d.). The poetry of death. Retrieved from http://sensitivitytothings.com/2008/03/22/poetry-of-death

Shikibu, M. (2003). The tale of Genji. London: Penguin. 

Skelton, J. R. (2009). Dying in Western literature. In A. Kellehear (Ed.), The study of dying: From autonomy to transformation(pp. 188–210). Cambridge: University Press.

Tennyson, A. (2017). In Memoriam A. H. H. Victoria: Leopold Classic Library

The Thomas Hardy Society (n. d.). After a journey. Retrieved July 25, 2017, from http://www.hardysociety.org/poems/all.php.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.