Mortalism : readings on the meaning of life / edited by Peter Heinegg.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Heinegg, Peter.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Life.

Death.

Physical Description:

214 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 2003.

Summary:

The inevitability and finality of death have prompted some of the world's most poignant and memorable literature, from the Epic of Gilgamesh of ancient Babylon to the works of contemporary poets and novelists such as Margaret Atwood. The conviction that death means everlasting extinction, with no possibility of an afterlife, is described by Peter Heinegg as "mortalism." In this unique anthology he has collected more than fifty selections of poetry and prose that reflect this reality of human existence and how its recognition and acceptance alter the way we view ourselves and the world. Heinegg calls mortalism "the great open secret of our culture" -- open because the arguments in its favor are clear, powerful, and perfectly accessible, and a secret because acknowledging it has been seen either as impious or as simply too depressing to discuss. However, some mortalists, such as Lucretius and Montaigne, have insisted that the awareness of death enriches our finite lives by making us focus on the one thing that is indisputably ours: the passing moment. Others, such as Gustave Flaubert or Virginia Woolf, embrace mortalism as a bitter truth that simply cannot be evaded. In sampling the variety of perspectives in this volume readers will find that mortalism was a viewpoint shared by many profound and creative minds throughout history, including Plato, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, and Tolstoy. In what may appear as a turnabout for some readers, relevant passages from the Books of Job and Ecclesiastes have also been included.

Contents:

1. The Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2000 B.C.E.) 15

2. The Bible (Job

Ecclesiastes [dates unknown]) 17

3. Homer (eighth century B.C.E.) 22

4. Sophocles (496?-406 B.C.E.) 31

5. Other Greek Poets 33

6. Plato (428-348 B.C.E.) 36

7. Epicurus (342?-270 B.C.E.) 39

8. Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus, 96?-55 B.C.E.) 41

9. Catullus (Gaius Valerius Catullus, 84-54 B.C.E.) 50

10. Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 B.C.E.) 51

11. Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4 B.C.E.-65 C.E.) 55

12. Hadrian (Publius Aelius Hadrianus, 76-138 C.E.) 56

13. Marcus Aurelius (121-180 C.E.) 57

14. Bede the Venerable (673?-735 C.E.) 61

15. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) 62

16. Chidiock Tichborne (d. 1586) 69

17. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 70

18. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) 75

19. David Hume (1711-1776) 77

20. Hume and Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) 84

21. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) 87

22. Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) 91

23. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) 94

24. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) 96

25. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) 101

26. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) 104

27. Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) 106

28. Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) 112

29. Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) 117

30. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) 118

31. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) 121

32. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) 127

33. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) 130

34. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) 137

35. William James (1843-1910) and Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) 141

36. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) 143

37. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) 149

38. George Santayana (1863-1952) 151

39. Miguel de Unamuno (1863-1936) 152

40. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) 159

41. Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) 161

42. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) 165

43. James Joyce (1882-1941) 168

44. D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) 172

45. Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) 177

46. Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) 178

47. Philip Larkin (1922-1985) 180

48. L. E. Sissman (1928-1976) 187

49. Richard Selzer (1938-) 193

50. Margaret Atwood (1939-) 202

51. James Fenton (1949-) 204

52. Gjertrud Schnackenberg (1953-) 206

53. Epilogue: William R. Clark (1938-) 210.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

1591020425

OCLC:

51519604