The Narrative Of Death In Western Literature Aesthetic Outlook

With the development of world globalization, nowadays Chinese literature and Western literature have influenced and learned from each other ever since. Owing to the difference in traditional culture and philosophy, Western Literature differs widely from the Chinese literature in the presentation of death, which deserves analyzing and researching.This thesis attempts to discuss the literary aesthetics embodied in the presentation of death in Western Literature. It consists of five chapters. First is preface, giving an overview of frame, meaning, target and conclusion of this thesis. This thesis briefly summarizes the relationship among western philosophy, religion, literature and death. The third chapter sums up the presentation and meaning of the death in the early literary works from primitive culture, ancient Greek and Roman mythology and folk fairy tales.The most important chapter consists of eight subdivided sections. Adopting a textual analysis, this chapter is devoted to a classification and demonstration of the varied modality and significance of the representation of death in the Western literature from five aspects: the relation between the mass and the individual, necessity and coincidence, dispute and abandon, redemption and decadence. The first section of the last chapter examines the issue of how the concern for the individual life is embodied in the presentation of death in the Western literature, and of how the sublimity and infinity of the individual dignity are incarnated in the presentation of death. The second section expounds the presentation of people's vanity and despair in an absurd world in modern and contemporary Western literature, and points out that the way that leads to the spiritual homestead is for human beings to go back to nature and to themselves.The Tesearch of this thesis is carried on the basis of extensive reading of numerous documents and texts. Apart j&om a diachronic analysis of presentation of death in western literary works of different periods, it also puts forward eight presentation patterns, tying to giving an overview on the presentation of death in western literature, In addition, it carries out a research on the relationship between the presentation of death and the concern for individual life.