ABSTRACT
The research tradition outlined in Chapter 2 is located in modern western societies in the twentieth century. It therefore needs to be placed into a wider context by considering accounts of grief from other times and from other cultures. This can be achieved first by looking at historical and anthropological sources, and second by considering the depiction of grief in poetry, literature and other personal accounts, and in the arts generally. As we noted in the previous chapter, Shand (1914, 1920) illustrated his pioneering writings on grief with quotations from the great novelists, poets and playwrights. In the remainder of this book, I shall also seek to use such illustrative sources, although I have the benefit of modern systematic research which was not available to Shand. My use of this Vast storehouse of information about human experience’ will therefore supplement the research rather than replace it, the only option available at the time Shand was writing.
