The Routledge Companion to Death and Literature

Neil Murphy editor Daniel Jernigan editor W Michelle Wang editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:31st May '23

£43.99

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The Routledge Companion to Death and Literature cover

The Routledge Companion to Death and Literature seeks to understand the ways in which literature has engaged deeply with the ever-evolving relationship humanity has with its ultimate demise. It is the most comprehensive collection in this growing field of study and includes essays by Brian McHale, Catherine Belling, Ronald Schleifer, Helen Swift, and Ira Nadel, as well as the work of a generation of younger scholars from around the globe, who bring valuable transnational insights.

Encompassing a diverse range of mediums and genres – including biography and autobiography, documentary, drama, elegy, film, the novel and graphic novel, opera, picturebooks, poetry, television, and more – the contributors offer a dynamic mix of approaches that range from expansive perspectives on particular periods and genres to extended analyses of select case studies. Essays are included from every major Western period, including Classical, Middle Ages, Renaissance, and so on, right up to the contemporary.

This collection provides a telling demonstration of the myriad ways that humanity has learned to live with the inevitability of death, where “live with” itself might mean any number of things: from consoling, to memorializing, to rationalizing, to fending off, to evading, and, perhaps most compellingly of all, to escaping. Engagingly written and drawing on examples from around the world, this volume is indispensable to both students and scholars working in the fields of medical humanities, thanatography (death studies), life writing, Victorian studies, modernist studies, narrative, contemporary fiction, popular culture, and more.

"This is a long overdue compendium that covers topics pertaining to death in literature and death and the literary arts from the classical to postmodern and everything between. I highly recommend this 'companion' for scholars at any stage of their studies and general readers whether their interests lie with a specific period, genre, or specialized topic such as medical humanities, death and sleep, trauma, the post-human, and much, much more." --Lesley D. Clement, Lakehead University-Orillia

ISBN: 9780367619053

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 453g

490 pages