The Dead Toreador, by Édouard Manet, c. 1864. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

The Dead Toreador, by Édouard Manet, c. 1864. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Death

Volume VI, Number 4 | fall 2013

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"The Antiquary's Last Will and Testament" from The English Dance of Death, by Thomas Rowlandson, 1814.

Preamble

Memento Mori

By Lewis H. Lapham

Learning how to die, as Michel de Montaigne once rightly said, is the unlearning of how to be a slave.

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Hunting Dogs with Dead Hare, by Gustave Courbet. 1857.

Mournful Creatures

By Virginia Morell

Humans may be the only animals who understand our mortality, but when it comes to grieving, we are not so unique.

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Map

Departures

A million ways to die.

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Miscellany

Titus Andronicus is William Shakespeare’s bloodiest play; the body count reaches fourteen. Rounding out the top-three deadliest plays are Richard III (eleven) and King Lear (ten).

8 | Tomis

Don’t Look Back

Ovid on resurrection. More

c. 1573 | Aquitaine

Living at Life’s Expense

Montaigne considers death and life.More

1889 | New York City

Mistakes Were Made

A guide to avoiding premature burial. More

Charts & Graphs

American Ways of Death

The cost of dying in the United States.

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Black and white photograph of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel.

Black and white photograph of French novelist, essayist, and playwright Albert Camus.

Black and white photograph of American surgeon and author Sherwin Nuland.

Black and white photograph of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton.

Color portrait of Chinese writer and poet Han Yu.

Photograph of American editor Brent Cunningham.

Black and white image of Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca the Younger.

Black and white photograph of poet, diplomat, and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson.

Death keeps no calendar.

—George Herbert, 1640

Black and white photograph of English writer Virginia Woolf.

Black and white photograph of French writer and film director Marguerite Duras.

Virginia Woolf & Marguerite Duras

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