Re: Dead body fetishism?

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>On this discussion, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the obsession with
>death in Victorian England -- Queen Victoria wasn't the only one to wear
>widow's weeds for the rest of her life after the death of a husband. I also
>recall reference to great emphasis on locks of hair of the deceased, woven
>into broaches, pins, or put into lockets; elaborate tombstones; and poetry.
>
>Is anyone on this list familiar with the culture of death at this time? Was
>it unique to England? An attenuated form may have been present in the US
>(remember Scarlett O'Hara's refusal to wear black for the rest of her life?).
> What about continental Europe?
>
>Kate Gillogly

Visitors to the Shelden Museum in Vermont will discover that a similar
culture of death was alive and well in the U.S.A. during the same period.
They have a
fine collection of the hair lockets, tombstones, etc. And poetry? Try Edgar
Allen Poe or Sidney Lanier.:-)


John McCreery
3-206 Mitsusawa HT, 25-2 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku
Yokohama 220, JAPAN

"And the Lord said unto Cyrus, 'Shall the clay say to him who moldest it,
what makest thou? Let the potsherd of the earth speak to the potsherd of
the earth." --An anthropologist's credo

• Previous message: Danny Yee: "Re: Animal culture?"