Death's danceI'm currently researching representations of death in literature and as a starting point am looking at La Danse Macabre. La Danse Macabre was a late medieval allegory of death's universality; no matter what status you hold in life, death unites all. Most evocations of this macabre message were illustrations which depicted the personification of death (usually a skeleton) leading a row of dancing figures from all walks of life into oblivion.
An explanation for the emergence of such macabre imagery in this period can be explained by the horrors that accompanied it. The Black Death being the main recourse to death's omnipresence to the average late medieval citizen. The relationship then of death with something as seemingly trivial and joyful as dancing is representative of a desperate desire for some amusement during this time of disease and death and seems to be a paradoxical urge for Carpe Dium with death, despite death.
La Danse Macabre in literature
In the medieval Mystery Plays, La Danse Macabre is didactic. Examples show death in dialogue with one of the plays' protaganists, advising them to be at all times prepared for Death and to submit to death in a brave and artful way. (see Ars Moriendi)
A modern evocation of this tradition:
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