Part II: Death in Literature. Poetry as Epitaph

Anyone tolerably versed in American literature will realize that we could have devoted our entire collection to attitudes toward death in American literature. Such a collection could be tightly organized and valuable, but it might also be redundant for an audience which consists primarily of loosened-up literary folk to begin with. So we offer, instead of standard selections, a group of essays which, though they are about death in literature, use literature as a vehicle for discussing either theoretical or practical interpretations of death in American society and letters. Karen Campbell's essay, “Poetry as Epitaph,” uses Emily Dickinson's poetry to illustrate and embody current international theories about death and language. We place this contribution first in this section because it serves as a transition between Gravestones and Epitaphs and Death in Literature: Dickinson was writing at the same historical moment discussed by Kenneth Ames in “Ideologies in Stone,” a fact the reader may wish to remember while reading “Poetry as Epitaph;” and Karen Campbell treats Dickinson's poetry as epitaphic in style and genre. Sonia Gernes' “Life After Life: Katherine Anne Porter's Version” uses Porter's “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” to illustrate and make provocative suggestions about Raymond Moody's theses in Life After Life. Leslier Fiedler's contribution is an extract from a speech given under the auspices of an organization studying the humanist's response to child abuse, and is part of a series of lectures on that subject. He discusses infanticide through literature and then through popular culture. Marvin Kohl takes issue with some of Professor Fiedler's conclusions.