Writers on time and death

( Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella, Only Connect, Maps, Zanichelli, 2000, p. M17)

The mystery connected to the end of human existence, the wisdom of those who, old and satiated with experience, like the Biblical figure of Job, take leave of existence, are some of the topoi of ancient Western literatures; they are widely dealt with in the Northern sagas, like Beowulf. The otherwordly dimension is often present in Medieval literature where the afterworld is described with vivid and threatening images, as in Everyman, designed to inspire the fear of eternal damnation in the reader.

The incessant flowing of time returns obsessively in the literature of the late 16th and 17th centuries, accompanied by a feeling of wonder and dismay due to the precariousness of man's position in the universe pointed out by the new geographical discoveries and philosophical theories. The clock becomes the symbol of the passing of time and questions about "to be and not to be" characterize the works by Shakespeare and the Metaphysical poets.

During the enlightened age of Reason, death tends to he exorcized by science, and the historical becoming is subdued to the instances of the present.

It is with the Romantic Age that the inexorabilitv of time and death once again recurs as a dominant issue. Whether seen from a mechanicistic point of view, as in Leopardi's works where death is abisso orrido, orrendo, or conforted by the religious belief, the tension towards the deepest meaning of being is utmost. Death, seen as a final setback or as an extreme test of courage, characterises the titanic figures in the works by Byron and Shelley, or in the novel by Emily Bronte, where death is associated with love.

The theme of' death can be also found in American literature, especially in the works of E.A. Poe ( 8.15), who was influenced by the theories of the Swedish theologian and philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688- 1772), according to whom God is the perfection of matter. Hence the juxtaposition of magnetism and spiritualism which characterizes many of Poe's stories, which influenced some Decadent authors, starting from Baudelaire. The physical decay brought I about by the passing of time, is one of the main themes of Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, where the protagonist covers his portrait not to see his beauty fading; his is a vain attempt to stop a natural decline.

Life and death are the sources of powerful, I symbolical imagery for some 20th-centuryI artists, like J. Joyce or T.S. Eliot, who, after his conversion, insists on a religious dimension according to which death does not mean the end of everything but the beginning of true life. W.B. Yeats, instead, deals with old age as the period when man recalls his juvenile sensuality and strength with passionate nostalgia. D.Thomas's poetry sums up the entire cycle of life: birth, life, decay, death and rebirth.