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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Death on a battlefield, atop a horse riding towards the left, wearing a hat with many feathers, other figures of Death battling to left and right in the background, by Stefano della Bell

Squeak & Gibber

By John Crowley

Humanity’s greatest feat of rationality lies in the explanations we use to grapple with our own mortality.

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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).

1390 | Japan

Walking in Circles

The dangers of thinking too much.More

1833 | London

One or Two Heartbreakers

Some goodbyes are harder than others.More

1437 | Hanyang

Crackdown

Choson Dynasty mourning etiquette.More

Charts & Graphs

How They Went

Match the deceased with cause of death.

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Oil painting portrair Michel de Montaigne in red robes and white collar

Detail of mural featuring Jacobus de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa and chronicler.

Black and white photograph of American writer and critic Anatole Broyard.

Color portrait of Greek poet Anacreon.

Color image of English novelist Charlotte Brontë with book in hand.

Painted portrait of English physician and author Thomas Browne.

Sculpture bust of Greek historian Herodotus.

I imagined it was more difficult to die.

—Louis XIV, 1715

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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