Personification Of Death Research Articles

THE NOSTALGIA BEHIND THE DECONSTRUCTION OF DEATH AND ITS PERSONIFICATION IN TERRY PRATCHETT’S DISCWORLD

The paper explores the portrayals of nostalgia and the notion of death in the popular fantasy book series Discworld, written by Terry Pratchett. In the novels, death is not depicted as a mere natural phenomenon but rather as a recurring, fully developed character whose role throughout the series is manifold and essential to convey the author’s underlying doctrine. Firstly, the paper is to briefly demonstrate the relevant perspectives on nostalgia by Davis (1979), Boym (2001,2007), and Salmose (2019) and their relation to the topic of the paper. The following part is to exemplify Pratchett’s illustrations of death and the nostalgia they convey, as well as to uncover the philosophy behind the deconstruction of conventional supposition towards humanness and dying. The character of Death simultaneously functions as an objective observer of humanity and a subjective participant who frequently fails to meet the criteria of being a human. It is precisely through these instances that Pratchett invokes the uniquely human mixture of follies and decency he glorifies throughout his oeuvre. The analysis is generated by presenting different narratives centered on the character of Death, which often encompass nostalgic views on the simplicity of life in the past and the loss of human essence associated with the deteriorating social values of the contemporary era. Therefore, the research aims to investigate Pratchett’s purportedly nostalgic personification of death in relation to his depiction of the aforementioned concerns.

Exploring the role of parthanatos in CNS injury: Molecular insights and therapeutic approaches.

Central nervous system (CNS) injury causes severe organ damage due to both damage resulting from the injury and subsequent cell death. However, there are currently no effective treatments for countering the irreversible loss of cell function. Parthanatos is a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP-1)-dependent form of programmed cell death that is partly responsible for neural cell death. Consequently, the mechanism by which parthanatos promotes CNS injury has attracted significant scientific interest. Our review aims to summarize the potential role of parthanatos in CNS injury and its molecular and pathophysiological mechanisms. Understanding the role of parthanatos and related molecules in CNS injury is crucial for developing effective treatment strategies and identifying important directions for future in-depth research. Parthanatos (from Thanatos, the personification of death according to Greek mythology) is a type of programmed cell death that is initiated by the overactivation of PARP-1. This process triggers a cascade of reactions, including the accumulation of poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR), the nuclear translocation of apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) after its release from mitochondria, and subsequent massive DNA fragmentation caused by migration inhibitory factor (MIF) forming a complex with AIF. Secondary molecular mechanisms, such as excitotoxicity and oxidative stress-induced overactivation of PARP-1, significantly exacerbate neuronal damage following initial mechanical injury to the CNS. Furthermore, parthanatos is not only associated with neuronal damage but also interacts with various other types of cell death. This review focuses on the latest research concerning the parthanatos cell death pathway, particularly considering its regulatory mechanisms and functions in CNS damage. We highlight the associations between parthanatos and different cell types involved in CNS damage and discuss potential therapeutic agents targeting the parthanatos pathway.

The big, bad… grim: personification of death in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

ABSTRACT Animated death has historically remained in specific categorical boxes with elements connected to Western ideology. One of the most consistent of these elements is the presentation of death as an obstacle that can be overcome – a presentation that satisfies the death anxieties of the surrounding culture. DreamWorks’ newest film in the Shrek franchise uniquely communicates death as a frightening, evil hindrance to life and the fulfilment of happiness through the personification of death as a menacing rendition of the Grim Reaper. Using specific cinematic and symbolic strategies, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish challenges specific Western notions about life and death at the same time that it reiterates the most enduring in animation: death is innately frightening.

MANIFESTATION OF THANATOS IN EDWARD BOND’S SAVED

In the post-Freudian thought, the two driving forces of human beings are Eros and Thanatos. They are the pleasure principle and death drive, respectively. The derivative terminology of these two forces is originated in Greek mythology with Eros as the god of pleasure and Thanatos, on the other hand, as the personification of death. For a long time, the latter force was eliminated off-stage due to theatrical existential reasons. However, one of the few successful attempts to force Thanatos on-stage is detected in Edward Bond‘s Saved (1968). This paper approaches Bond‘s Saved (1968) aiming to show the poeticity in the Shklovskian defamiliarizing entries that forced the theatrical censorship into accepting the play despite the fact that the play promptly violated the censorship regulations. With these entries, the stage—once again—addresses human feelings while reshaping the Eros-oriented theatre. The result is residing tension in the audience after realizing the unexplored possibilities of the Thanatos-oriented stage and a consequent undoing of the prior anchorage of metaphor into a floating concept that involves the redefinition attempts into same-but-different perspective. The findings of the paper implicate that the employment of irregular techniques makes it possible to challenge people into the recognition of corruption by being charged with the responsibility of taking action concerning paratextual contexts through nondidactic plays.

The Concept of Death in British Worldview: Verbal and Textual Manifestations

Тhis article focuses on investigating DEATH as a concept in its verbal and textual manifestations to provide insights into its lexicographic and textual portrayals. The notion of death, being one of the fundamental aspects of human existence, belongs to the category of universal concepts that are of paramount importance in the linguistic domain of every society. The present study employs lexicographic sources and the British literature discourse of the 20th and 21st centuriesto analysethe definitions of the respective lexeme and its contextual usage.The results show that the core of DEATH is represented by the following semantic features:“end of all functions of life “,“a murder or killing,” “termination,” “destruction,”, “experience considered as terrible as death,” “a personification of death,” “a cause of death,” “loss or absence of spiritual life,” “massacre,” “a state of being dead”. The article explores how linguistic devices related to the concept of death are structured and employed in the British discourse. The concept of death is verbalized through a range of linguistic elements, including different parts of speech such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, as well as expressions and euphemisms.

The Triumph of Death of the Danse Macabre and the “Eschatological Optimism” of the Synodics

Comparison of thanatological ideas in different mediaeval cultures makes it possible to understand their value categories formed through works of literature and visual art. Depictions of Death, the “great absentee” of the Middle Ages, and “the first discovery of man on the threshold of modern times” (Le Goff) occupy a leading place in European frescoes and engravings of the fifteenth century. The personification of death in the form of a disgusting monster, reaping a rich harvest from representatives of all ages and classes with a merciless sickle instilled fear and forced everyone to think about the inevitable end. According to the intention of the Catholic clergy, such fear contributed to the development of virtues and the rejection of a sinful lifestyle. The common character of axiological ideas of the culture of Old Rus’ and the countries of Western Europe, based on Christianity, seems to be able to testify to the unity of eschatological views on the problems of “minor” eschatology. However, there is reason to assert that in Russia, unlike Europe, the path to immortality was more captivating than its images, and the fear of deathly torments gave rise to a desire to atone for sins through repentance, prayer, almsgiving, and kindness. Such attitudes are clearly illustrated by the materials of the Russian Synodics, which, unlike the works of Western European danse macabre, marked the finalistic optimism of Russian culture, showing reliable ways to save the person’s soul even during their lifetime, which is why they were called “books of the living”. It was through the comprehension of these aspects of otherness that a special culture of mediaeval Russia was formed.

Editorial

The concept of death as an entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of our history. From the 15th century onwards, with the revival of Greco-Roman culture as a source of artistic inspiration, it came to be represented by a skeletal figure carrying a scythe and dressed in a hooded black robe. This was inspired by Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, and by Thanatos, the personification of death, and is an image with strong negative connotations. The theme of death can be approached from several perspectives, including positive ones. Regardless of the angle from which it is viewed, certainly in these times of pandemic, we all think or deepen our thinking about death. But what happens to humanity afterwards? Can we become better people? A socially better humankind? Can we produce really justifiable and sustainable health science? Transformations have taken place, but some were just repetitions of history disguised as contemporary innovation. As epidemiological data show the decline of the Covid-19 pandemic, life seems to be returning to “normality” in the concept of being as it was before. For those who think like this, we must not forget that what prevailed before is what brought us to where we are now and, therefore, a translational historical rescue becomes essential for survival with quality of life for both humans and humanity. Hope is still inside Pandora's box. in memory of Professor Edna Ferreira da Cunha Eloísio Alexsandro da Silva RuellasEditor In-Chief

Precolonial Beliefs in God, Nzambi, and Chthonic Beings: Evidence from Kongo Texts

Abstract Manuscripts in their own language by indigenous ethnographers at the beginning of the colonial period, not hitherto examined in detail, give unique insight into precolonial beliefs in the Kikongo-speaking region of what was then Belgian Congo, and the transition to Christianity. That transition depended in large part on translation, giving new meanings to old words. The texts suggest that Nzambi, now the Kongo name for the Christian God, was originally a personification of death. The power of life, on the other hand, was credited to bisimbi, chthonic forces that are simultaneously both material and immaterial. Although scholars have generally overlooked this issue, belief in these forces is foundational to what has usually been called traditional religion and its rituals, most of them now extinct. This Kongo configuration exemplifies, on a small scale, one that is found generally in West and Central Africa.

Boccaccio's Pisan Allegory of "Death" in Petrarch's Triumphus Mortis

From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, viral contagions, such as the Black Death of 1348, disrupted many social, political, and economic parts of life, situating the idea and the reality of Death in mass numbers at the forefront of late medieval and early Renaissance minds. Responding to the anxieties experienced by the thousands, literary and visual texts from this period emphasized the personification of Death as an imposing figure and common threat. This paper traces the visual evolution of the figure of Death which, I argue, developed according to intertextual and intervisual dialogues among Francesco Petrarca’s Triumphus Mortis, Giovanni Boccaccio’s L’Amorosa visione, and the fresco known as the Triumph of Death by Buonamico Buffalmacco in the Pisa Camposanto. While early visual portrayals of Petrarch’s Triumphus Mortis attest to the renewed interest in the “Triumph of Death” in the decades immediately following the 1358 plague, most artists depict a chariot atop which Death rides during a “triumphal” procession, painted elements that are not explicitly recounted in Petrarch’s text.  I investigate the reasons for this cross-contamination between word and image around the “Triumph of Death,” demonstrating further how Boccaccio’s engagement with funerary rituals informed his Amorosa visione, as well as his viewing of the Pisa Camposanto. The fusion of live-action pageantry with the visual “Triumph of Death” provided Petrarch with an intermedial model for his Triumphus Mortis, to which later artists turned for inspiration in depicting figures within and beyond the poet’s Trionfi. Such intermedial dialogues across art and poetry resonated with audiences striving to overcome the indiscriminate nature of Death and the fear of disease during a most unsettling historical moment.

“A Border is a Veil”: Death as a Border in The Farming of Bones and The Book Thief

Within literature, death has always been a common theme. In this essay, death as a border in literature will be explored in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones and Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. The Farming of Bones follows Amabelle Désir, a young Haitian woman working in the Dominican Republic, and tells of the Haitian massacre in the Dominican Republic in 1937. The Book Thief follows Liesel Meminger, a young German girl living under the Nazi regime, and tells of life during World War II. Both Danticat and Zusak explore death as it appears in those tragedies, how it affects the people under those regimes, and how it creates a border. Death creates a border both physical and spiritual, rigid yet permeable, and one that is displayed through the personification of death by Danticat and Zusak.

Mary of Burgundy Alive or Dead

Three depictions of Mary of Burgundy seated on horseback were made soon after the duchess’s death.The drawn copy of a lost work by Hugo van der goes commemorates the negotiations held in Trier in 1473 between frederick iii and Charles the Bold, when they made their first agreement on joining their children in marriage. The composition is strikingly reminiscent of the theme of The Meeting of the Three Living and the Three Dead; the high-born female rider arriving behind Maximilian is Mary of Burgundy, depicted after her death. The man confronting the riders with their mortality probably refers to Charles the Bold (d. 1477). The original work was likely to have been commissioned by Maximilian sometime between the death of the duchess and that of the painter, that is between March and December 1482.Like the drawing, the allegorical poem completed in 1483 by olivier de La Marche is a commemoration of the recently deceased dukes and duchess of the House of Burgundy. for the edition of the poem published by the Brethren of the Common Life in gouda, the drawing associated with Hugo van der goes was utilised to illustrate the chapter on the death of Mary of Burgundy.The protagonist of The Meeting of the Three Living and the Three Dead in the manuscript known as the “Berlin Hours of Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian of Austria” is Mary of Burgundy, who died in a riding accident. i refute all the arguments suggesting that the miniature preceded the duchess’s death. The double letters “M” on the harness of Mary’s horse (which are also found several other times in the book of hours) refer not only to the names of the ducal couple, but also to words associated with death. The miniature itself was probably commissioned by Maximilian, after his wife’s death. With its softer brushwork, the decorative frame around the miniature – as well as the entire recto of folio 221 – was probably made when the manuscript was in the possession of Margaret of Austria. The personification of Death differs from the verso in many respects (scale, background, style); iconographically it can be considered an afterthought. The green parrot and golden dove in the left margin are also afterthoughts. The two birds appear in the Épîtres de l’Amant vert (1505), the consolatory poem composed for Margaret by Jean Lemaire: one bird was the mother’s favourite, the other her daughter’s favourite; both ended their lives in the mouths of dogs (which had been barking on the verso of folio 220 for a few years before). Here and now, in the margin of the recto of folio 221, the birds representing the souls of mother and daughter are inhabitants of Paradise. The protagonist in the verso of folio 158 of the London rothschild Hours – the image is a copy of the Berlin Meeting – is the commissioner of the manuscript, and also the owner of the Berlin manuscript: Margaret of Austria, identifying with and commemorating her mother Mary of Burgundy. The depiction facing it in the recto of folio 159 alludes to the series of events (the two funerals) that followed the death of Margaret’s husband, Philibert ii, with a proleptic depiction of st. nicolas’s Church in Brou (their future common tomb). Besides the riding ladies, the illustrations of the office of the Dead in the Berlin and London Hours share numerous similarities.

Sight, Sound, and Silence at the Oratorio of San Bernardino in Clusone

Recently, Chiara Frugoni has reiterated this lauda-fresco relationship, also briefly mentioning that the disciplini might have gathered in front of the Triumph of Death and Dance of Deathmural to read and recite “Io sono per nome chiamata morte.”8 Building on these observations, my contribution in this article is to specifically explore the performative ways in which the Bianchi could have interacted with the images on the façade of their oratory while reciting the lauda “Io sono per nome chiamata morte” aloud. My in-depth analysis of several passages from this vernacular poem confirms that the narrative in the fresco was modeled on the content of this text. I argue that, by incorporating and engaging with images that foreground the senses of sight and hearing, the iconography of the Clusone fresco becomes a multi-sensory meditation on “Io son per nome chiamata morte.” In particular, I posit that the conversation between Death and the disciplino, as conveyed in this lauda, is primarily envisioned in the representation of Mors triumphans standing on the uncovered sarcophagus at the top of the fresco. Death in triumph not only defiantly faces its onlookers—the Bianchi—by establishing eye contact with them but it also opens its jaw in a sign of speech. The words pronounced by Death, reported on two of the four scrolls at the top of the Clusone painting, correspond to those voiced by the personification of Death in “Io son per some chiamata morte.” I thus suggest that these verses inscribed in the fresco would have functioned as a memory prompt for each disciplino, who, in turn, would have recalled and recited aloud the other lines from the same lauda, thus activating a dialogue with Death.

Народная демонология Полесья в контексте восточнославянских традиционных верований

This article studies folk demonological beliefs that are widespread on the territory of Polesye, located on the border of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. The traditional culture of this region is of great interest for ethnologists of the broadest profile, since it preserves many archaic elements of all-Slavic significance. In the first part of the study, two blocks of the regional mythological system were considered: spirits of domestic and natural loci, and a group of characters originated from the souls of deceased. The second part of the work considers two groups of mythological characters: spirits not assigned to a specific locus (the devil, spirits of diseases, personification of death, characters for intimidation of children) and different categories of living people endowed with supernatural knowledge (witches, sorcerers, healers, werewolves). The study is based on data from the East-Slavic demonology.

Russian folk demonology and its regional features. Part I. The spirits of nature and house locuses. The personification of death and diseases

Russian folk demonology and its regional features. Part I. The spirits of nature and house locuses. The personification of death and diseases

About the Cover Image

On the cover of this issue is an image taken from the Wellcome Collection. Titled “Dance of death: death and the pedlar”, the image shows a skeletal personification of Death picking through a basket of goods. In the basket are included masks, crosses, a deck of cards, swords, and a variety of other items. Published in the 18th Century, it is based on, and an interpretation of a piece in Basel on the Dance of Death. It is black and white and a print produced via etching a plate and using this to print the image.

Personification of Death: What Types of Death Are Personified by Macabre, Gentle Comforter, Gay Deceiver, and Automaton?

Kastenbaum and Aisenberg identified a phenomenon, wherein American subjects personified death in four distinctive figures: Macabre, Gentle Comforter, Gay Deceiver, and Automaton. Until recently, though, researchers did not attempt to answer the question, "What specific aspects of the death experience can be attributed to each of those four personifications?" To answer this question, the current qualitative research asked individuals to envision the causes, places, and contexts of death after imagining each personification of death. The results have revealed that people associated each personification of death with distinct causes, places, and contexts of death: Macabre-murder taking place outside the home, Gentle Comforter-peaceful death by old age at home, Gay Deceiver-death from heart attack, and Automaton-death from cancer in a modern hospital. This article also discusses unanswered questions, limitations, and directions to take its research in the future.

Ipostaze Thanatice În Poetica Lui Lucian Blaga Și Dylan Thomas

Abstract The following paper revolves around the concept of thanatos, whose name comes from the personification of death in the Greek mythology. In other words, the objective of this paper is to analyze the main forms and symbols regarding the theme of death in several poems of Lucian Blaga and Dylan Thomas and try to explain how, despite the fact that they come from different cultural environments and have different sources of inspiration and literary purposes regarding the aim of their works, their poetical works present several resemblances in terms of meaning in relation to the theme of death, as approached in the 20th century modern poetry.

What Is a Good Death?

What Is a Good Death?

“Jan de Dood en sy bende”: Vergestaltings van die dood in die romans van Lettie Viljoen/Ingrid Winterbach

References to death and mortality play an (increasingly) important role in the works of Lettie Viljoen/Ingrid Winterbach. In this article the central role of personifications of death in her novels is investigated. There are mainly two important ways in which death is embodied in her novels since 1993, i.e. as an ubiquitous, but simultaneously absent male figure, such as Jama in Karolina Ferreira (translated as The Elusive Moth, 1993, 2005), Jan de Dood in Buller se plan (Buller’s plan, 1999) and Theo Verwey in Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat (The book of coincidence and refuge, 2006) and the femme fatale and angel of death, respectively represented by a seductive woman with red hair and pale skin and either an emaciated woman in black, or a black woman as in Landskap met vroue en slang (Landscape with women and snake, 1996) Buller se plan and Niggie (translated as To Hell with Cronjé, 2002, 2007). These personifications function as so-called memento mori – iconographic reminders of mortality. Although death obtains a specific personal appearance through personification, it does not become more knowable or representable in the works of Viljoen/Winterbach, however. In fact, these embodiments repeatedly rather underline the ungraspable nature and unknowableness of death. In the novels since Karolina Ferreira there is, eventually, a sustained tension between the attempts to make death more knowable and representable on the one hand and, on the other, the understanding or concession that all these attempts are, ultimately, insufficient and limited.

Gender Equality in Death? The Normative Dimension of Roman Catholic Ossuaries

Gender seems to be so important for social orientation that it does not end with death, but forms practices and ideas around death. In Roman Catholic regions across Europe we find charnel houses and ossuaries, where the bones of the deceased have been collected. The exposed mortal remains reminded the living of death and warned them to live a ‘good’ life. To explain the interrelation between such normative demands and the material representation of death, a gender-based perspective is useful: in their material representations, ossuaries offer gendered ideas of death. For example we find murals of masculine and feminine personifications of death as the Reaper. But ossuaries also posit the ungendered equality of all humans in death: girls, boys, women and men are nothing more than bones, arranged side by side. I argue that ossuaries can be understood as in-between spaces for gender concepts: they support a gendered social order, but they also blur gender differences.