The savage god
Subtitle: a study of suicide
By: A. Alvarez
Edition: 1st American Ed.
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1972
Place of publication: London
Number of pages: 299
Subjects: Suicide in literature; Suicide
Description: This book explores suicide as it has never been described before. It is a deep compassionate insight into the realm of self-destruction from a personal, literary, and existential point of view. The author dispels the preconception that suicide is either a terrifying aberration or something to be ignored altogether. He documents and explores historically man's changing attitudes toward suicide: from the various primitive societies, the Greek and Roman cultures, to the development of the suicidal martyrdom of the early Christian church, the later concept of suicide as a mortal sin to be savagely punished, and the counterrevolutionary attitude of the late nineteenth century which shifted the responsibility of suicide from the individual to society. He continues with a discussion of the theories which have been developed about suicide. From there, he explores the minds and emotional states of Dante, Cowper, Donne, Chatterton, and others, explaining the death trend in their works. He sees revealed in literature the voyage of the suicide in past centuries and today. He returns to a personal view of suicide at the close of the book as he chronicles his attempt on his own life. He brings the reader through a journey where one sees the act of suicide as the end of a long experience, an emptiness so isolated and violent--making life into such a paper-thin reality--that it surrenders.--
Notes: 6