Mapping mortality
Subtitle: the persistence of memory and melancholy in early modern England
By: William E. Engel.
Series: Massachusetts studies in early modern culture
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Amherst
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
Subjects: English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism.; Death in literature.; Funeral rites and ceremonies -- England -- History -- 16th century.; Funeral rites and ceremonies -- England -- History -- 17th century.; English literature -- European influences.; Melancholy in literature.; Memory in literature.; Arts, Renaissance.; England -- Social life and customs -- 16th century.; England -- Social life and customs -- 17th century.
Description: This book is a cultural study of the ways men and women in early modern England confronted, accommodated, and paid tribute to mortal life and certain death. Drawing on prose and poetry, painting and statuary, social practices and religious rites, William Engel reopens central questions about Renaissance habits of thought.

He explores how the metaphorics of that period signaled and enacted a continual revelation of mortality: the death of the body (figured as a kind of vehicle) and the eternality of the soul (that which was to be transported).

Engel argues that early modern metaphorics was essentially mnemonic and emblematic, grounding itself in the relation of body and soul. Building on the work of Benjamin, Heidegger, Derrida, Baudrillard, and Eliade, the book provides contemporary readers with a key for recovering and understanding the critical assumptions underlying a mnemonically oriented principle of aesthetics.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.