Hamlet, Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight each show us powerful ways to grieve.
Tag Archives: death and dying
Beowulf’s Lessons in How to Grieve
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Angus Fletcher, Beowulf, grieving, Hamlet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, William Shakespeare, Wonderworks | Comments closed
Euripides on the Loss of a Child
Euripides helped philosopher Nussbaum handle the death of her daughter. This is one of literature’s great gifts.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged death of a child, Euripides, Martha Nussbaum, Trojan Women | Comments closed
A Moses Poem for a Lost Child
Mourning her dead child, this writer chose to read a poem echoing the infant Moses story.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Cargoes", "Jabberwocky", "Late Fragment", "Moses", "Sonnet 29", "Taking Care", "Theme in Yellow", Calista Buchen, Carl Sandburg, child's death, John Masefield, Lewis Carroll, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Raymon Carver, William Shakespeare | Comments closed
Before Vaccines: Home Burials
Poems like Frost’s “Home Burial” can bring home the reality of a child’s death.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Home Burial", anti-vaxxers, child deaths, Patrick Logan, Robert Frost, Tom Nichols, vaccines | Comments closed
Pullman and Dante on the Afterlife
Pullman, drawing on Dante, provides one of the most sustaining accounts of the afterlife that I know.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Adonais", "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep", "Upon Nothing", "World", Afterlife, Amber Spyglass, Fragment of Seneca Translated, Henry Vaughan, His Dark Materials, John Donne, John Wilmot, Mary Elizabeth Frye, Percy Shelley, Philip Pullman, Satyr on Reason and Mankind | Comments closed
A Memorial Service for Old Classmates
In “Choir Invisible,” George Eliot aspires to have an uplifting impact on others.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Choir Invisible", Carleton College, George Eliot, remembering the dead | Comments closed
Reading “Jabberwocky” to a Dying Child
Reasons why a mother might read “Jabberwocky” to a dying child.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Jabberwocky", "Moses", death of a child, Lewis Carroll, Luis Alberto de Cuenca | Comments closed
Crucial Support in the Face of Death
In “Women of Brewster Place” a character charges into a scene of despair and refuses to let death triumph.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Anna Karenina, Gloria Naylor, Leo Tolstoy, Women of Brewster Place | Comments closed
Tolstoy’s Kitty and a Dying Patient
My favorite episode in “Anna Karenina” is Kitty showing Levin she can handle a dying patient better than he can.
