Abstract
Early modern attitudes towards death, in both Catholic and Protestant beliefs, insisted that a dying person’s state of mind on their deathbed in the final moment before death would determine their salvation or damnation. With ars moriendi, the deathbed scene became a socially, culturally and dramatically symbolic episode and the bedchamber became the stage of a highly dramatic rite of passage. Shakespearean drama naturally adapted these deathbed scenes to the Elizabethan stage, emphasising how the private space of the bedchamber had become the place for a public spectacle. When considering deathbed scenes, one should study not only the visual but also the verbal dimension. In the same way that there are good deaths and bad deaths, there are good and bad last words, conventional and subversive dying speeches in drama.
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