Hopkins's Approach to Mortality and His Innovations in Poetic Form

2018

This dissertation is the first comprehensive analysis of the subject of mortality in Gerard Manley Hopkins's writings. Hopkins's writings on this subject are broad and varied: while still a student at Oxford, Hopkins became fascinated by martyrs; later, as a priest he would go on to write movingly about the deaths of parishioners in his care and would extol the virtues of soldiers, or "daredeaths" as he refers to them in one poem; finally, toward the end of his life, Hopkins became preoccupied with the role our own mortality plays in shaping our life, perspective, and choices. While previous scholars have tended to dismiss Hopkins's interest in death as "morbid" and have commonly rejected the notion that there is a unified perspective on death in his writings, I argue that his treatment of death exhibits both a fundamental unity and an ethical perspective. In a synthesis of formal criticism and moral philosophy, I show that Hopkins's poems are not so much emotional expressions as spiritual exercises; they are both shaped by and imitative of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola as well as the broader tradition of spiritual exercises in Christian and classical thought. As such, they provide methods for responding to death ethically by using our experiences and awareness of death to redirect and transform our will and desires.

Senior Honors Papers, 2006

This paper will pursue the theme of death as a transgression against the created order through the works of five authors-the Apostle Paul, William Shakespeare, Alfred Telmyson, Dylan Thomas, and J.R.R. Tolkien-while also providing a brief overview of the perspectives on death presented in each author's writings. The paper will demonstrate that although the five authors treat death with varying degrees of positive and negative tone, often in proportion to the orthodoxy of their Christian beliefs, their writings are in agreement that man was not created to die, and that death should not be spoken or written of lightly.

What Dies? Eternalism and the Afterlife in William James, 2016

1998

Preface "Call no man happy until he is dead" wrote unhappy Aeschylus. "Death is nothing" opined the much more contented Epicurus. "Death is not an event in life. Death is not lived through" wrote the early Wittgenstein.

Heidegger, Authenticity and the Self, 2014

In a famous paper pondering what he calls "the tedium of immortality," Bernard Williams steers a middle course between two inadequate conceptions of death. The first is the Epicurean idea that death is nothing to fear, or even regret, since to be dead is not to be, hence not to suffer. Your future nonbeing, after all, cannot possibly matter to you when it would have to matter to you in order to constitute a misfortune, namely, where you are dead. The second conception is the far more widespread and stubbornly persistent attitude of sheer existential anguish, often followed up by the fanciful thought that we would be better off not having to die at all.

In the history of mankind, it is difficult to find a topic more ancient than death and dying. This topic has persistently occupied the thoughts of philosophers, theologians, scientist, and most certainly the average human being. Scientific investigation of this topic did riot begin in earnest until the mid-1950's for reasons yet open to conjecture. Certainly, the Freudian notion that we cannot accept our own mortality since we cannot "know" death has provided a quick and convenient rationale for skirting the issue (Freud, 1915. The idea that we cannot "know" death is also found in the writings of the eminent suicidologist Edwin Shneidman who wrote that people can only "know" death as one experience the death of another, or as one anticipates it for himself (1973). The latter is what Sneidman calls "knowledge through the Postself"; the current anticipation of what the world will be like when the person is absent from it and how his fame, reputation, and impact. will be perceived. The Postself may be inscribed in: a. the memories of others; bthe stimulation of the works and deeds of others through one's own works; c. the bodies of others through organ transplantation; d. the genes of one's progeny and e. the cosmos as part of the universe. According to Shneidman, if one could experience death directly, one would not be dead! This attitude toward death has helped foster the reputation of our society as death-defying and death-denying. It can be clearly seen in Judeo-Christian beliefs that stress eternal life even if corporeal existence is ephemeral, and in the euphemistic verbalizations that refer to death as expiration, being deceased, passing away, and in the usual device of avoiding reference to the term death altogether for fear that such usage may actualize it. Death-denying and defying is also conspicuous in the practices of physicians and other "healing" professionals where new life-extending techniques abound in a seemingly vain attempt to prevent (or at least postpone) what no person can.

Expository Times 125.8, 2013

The liberal Episcopal bishop of Newark (New Jersey), John Shelby Spong (b. 1931), is convinced that religion cannot be seen as a proper tool to discuss the issues of human existence and neither is it an adequate instrument to fathom the reality of death as part of man’s being in the world. Thus, his thought is an attempt to move beyond theology into some sort of secular thinking which avoids theology in particular and religion in general. Such convictions stem from his belief that man’s most fundamental attitude to death—which is characterized by fear—is the result of religion, because to this very age death has been shaped by various religious views. Consequently, in order for man to regain a natural approach to death as part of his own existence, he must put aside religious persuasions and, in doing so, adopt a perspective that allows him to embrace death fearlessly. Religion cannot simply be erased, which means that it has to be studied in order for man to move beyond it; having done so, man should be able to elevate himself above religion which offers him the chance to seek the truth within his own humanity. The externality of religion, therefore, should be excluded from man’s quest for meaning; when this happens, death becomes internal, inherent to man’s most intimate existence and also the most fundamental aspect of truth. In other words, traditional religion must turn itself into some sort of lay (specifically secular) philosophy which only retains religious language and imagery to explain that religion is not needed for man’s contemporary approach to death. Fear of death can be dealt with successfully if aging and death are seen in the light of meaningful relationships which are able to transform the finitude of life in the eternity of existence as reflected in the memories of those who survive the deceased.

Philosophy in review, 2017