Article: Bearing the Dead: The British Culture of Mourning from the Enlightenment to Victoria.

In Bearing the Dead Esther Schor proposes that "mourning is a cultural rather than psychological phenomenon ... a force that constitutes communities and makes it possible to conceptualize history." (pp. 3, 4) Starting from this assumption Schor argues that mourning, as represented in Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" and the poetry of Wordsworth, was a crucial experience through which the British of the late eighteenth century learned how to share their grief, and through such a sympathetic exchange imagine themselves as a community. Although Schor relies on the literary canon for a great deal of her evidence, her work is valuable especially because she reads Gray, ...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:

 
 
Newsweek Harper's Magazine The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Crain's Chicago Business PRNewswire Pediatric News The Nation Advertising Age The Economist (US) A FREE trial gives you access to over 80 million articles! Access over 6,500 publications with a FREE trial!