In the Midst of Winter: Selections from the Literature of Mourning

A breathtaking, indispensable collection featuring poetry, fiction, letters, and diaries of the world's greatest writers on the nature of grief.

Death silences not only those it takes, but those it leaves behind: All too typically we can neither express our grief nor express sympathy for the bereaved. In this sensitive collection, loss finds a voice--or several voices--in the poetry, fiction, letters, and diaries of the world's great writers. Here are James Agee, recording the shock of his father's death; William Shakespeare, making poetry of Cleopatra's grief; the Biblical wisdom of The Book of Lamentations; the psychological acuity of Marcel Proust. Here are mourners from classical Rome to eleventh-century China, from the Paiute Indians to present-day Ireland. Arranged in sections that correspond to the stages of mourning, In the Midst of Winter is a volume whose breadth and resonance make it invaluable and utterly unique.

Author: Mary Jane Moffat
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 03/03/1992
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.10w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780679738275

About the Author
MARY JANE MOFFAT earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at Stanford University, where she also taught Creative Writing in Wallace Stegner's department as a Merrilees Fellow. She also taught at San Francisco State University and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. She was co-editor of the feminist book, Revelations; Diaries of Women and editor of In the Midst of Winter, Selections from the Literature of Mourning.