Blackwell Reference Online

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And after all came Life, and lastly Death;Death with most grim and griesly visage seene,Yet he is nought but parting of the breath;Ne ought to see, but like a shade to weene,Unbodied, unsoul'd, unheard, unseene. …Spenser, Faerie Queen 404In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; why is it that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.(Moby-Dick: 36–7)For Herman Melville writing and death are indissolubly related. He shares with Wordsworth a perception that places the fact of mortality at the origin of language and makes the epitaph emblematic of the literary. For both writers memorializing ... log in or subscribe to read full text