ABSTRACT
This chapter uses Shakespeare’s dedications and Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece to discuss art and life, death and life, life-writing and death-writing. The relation between life and art, often framed in terms of mimesis, is fraught with difficulties, so that the connection between ethics and aesthetics is intricate. After briefly discussing the theoretical debate on mimesis, this chapter examines closely Shakespeare’s narrative poems, to discuss life and death as well as, to some extent, health and illness. The poems explore the themes of time, love, lust and death in speaking about life, in having a speaker create a narrative of life and death.
