A good and holy death : Ars moriendi and the battle of wit versus truth
Abstract
There is an ancient Christian tradition of a ‘good and holy death’. That tradition has largely been forgotten in the medicalization of death, which regards death solely as an enemy to be defeated at all costs. This paper examines the tradition of a holy death through the lens of Margaret Edson's play W;t, with particular attention paid to the use of John Donne's poetry in the play. The paper then uses theologian Allen Verhey's writings on the Christian art of dying as a means to understand the play in a Christian context, with special attention paid to the way in which it portrays Vivian Bearing, the play's protagonist, as a victim as much as a beneficiary of modern medicine.
Citation
Rentfro , D 2022 , ' A good and holy death : Ars moriendi and the battle of wit versus truth ' , New Blackfriars , vol. 103 , no. 1108 , pp. 730-744 . https://doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12789
Publication
New Blackfriars
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0028-4289Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2022 The Authors. New Blackfriars published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
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