Death Wail in Literature
The death wail is mentioned in many literary works:
"She began the high, whining keen of the death wail...It rose to a high piercing whine and subsided into a moan. Mama raised it three times and then she turned and went into the house..." John Steinbeck's short story "Flight", set in Santa Lucia Mountains
Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions, set in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
Read more about this topic: Death Wail
Famous quotes containing the words death, wail and/or literature:
“Hunger shall make thy modest zone
And cheat fond death of all but bone—”
—Cecil Day Lewis (1904–1972)
“Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)
“Since people no longer attend church, theater remains as the only public service, and literature as the only private devotion.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)