John Benjamins Publishing Company
Montaigne, the essay and the end of life
Abstract
This study builds on previous work in the way that death and dying are represented in writing in the Humanities by looking principally though not exclusively at the work of Montaigne. It is argued that while literary texts of course portray end of life issues, it is often either focussed on the death of an individual and the surrounding grief, or “death” is used for symbolic purposes, for example as evidence of a society in decay. The essay form, which was to a large extent created by Montaigne, offers the opportunity to explore end of life questions as concepts, and to consider through them how to die – and by extension, how to live.
Abstract
This study builds on previous work in the way that death and dying are represented in writing in the Humanities by looking principally though not exclusively at the work of Montaigne. It is argued that while literary texts of course portray end of life issues, it is often either focussed on the death of an individual and the surrounding grief, or “death” is used for symbolic purposes, for example as evidence of a society in decay. The essay form, which was to a large extent created by Montaigne, offers the opportunity to explore end of life questions as concepts, and to consider through them how to die – and by extension, how to live.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Presentation 1
-
Section I. Three disciplinary approaches to the subject of death
- Death 11
- Moral ortothanasia and the right to die 23
- In the wake of loss 35
-
Section II. Discourse analysis in health settings
- The gift of continuing to live in the body of someone else 49
- Giving meaning to illness and death 67
- Religion, collusion, and “fighting” 85
- Rhetoric of death in clinical case reports and clinical tales 97
-
Section III. Death in literary texts
- ‘Letters to Lucilius’ and death 113
- Montaigne, the essay and the end of life 125
- Memory, mothers and post-Freudian melancholia in Mercè Rodoreda’s ‘Night and Fog’ 147
- The scenography of death in contemporary poetry 167
- Beyond the limits of death 179
- Index 195
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Presentation 1
-
Section I. Three disciplinary approaches to the subject of death
- Death 11
- Moral ortothanasia and the right to die 23
- In the wake of loss 35
-
Section II. Discourse analysis in health settings
- The gift of continuing to live in the body of someone else 49
- Giving meaning to illness and death 67
- Religion, collusion, and “fighting” 85
- Rhetoric of death in clinical case reports and clinical tales 97
-
Section III. Death in literary texts
- ‘Letters to Lucilius’ and death 113
- Montaigne, the essay and the end of life 125
- Memory, mothers and post-Freudian melancholia in Mercè Rodoreda’s ‘Night and Fog’ 147
- The scenography of death in contemporary poetry 167
- Beyond the limits of death 179
- Index 195
