SELF- Grave Matters

In this book, The author talks about the philosophy of death.

The author gives an account of his own experience of death.

He explains his relationship with the cemetery and its journey. He explores the graves of figures that shaped the 20th century.

Picture retrieved from the book Grave Matters

The book has a very personal insight into the life of the author and its relationship with death. He talks about the morning, the death of his baby sister and brother. He recounts how his parents hide the death of his siblings and how this first visit to the cemetery impacted the start of this book. Taylor does a very accurate account of how people mourn.

The author began to wonder about the death and burial grounds of other writers, architects, artists and philosophers. Where were they buried? Are their graves marked? Which inscription they have in their graves?

He started to follow “his ghosts”, thinkers and writers that were important to him and tracked them down.

This book talks about the phenomenology of death and is written as a personal narrative. Taylor explains the origins behind cemeteries and different religions. He states that in the Christian faith, the cemetery was seen as a temporary resting place where the dead awaited resurrection.

He states the mentally around the Christian religion and how they idealised death and worship those who died for their faith. He points out that early Christian churches were constructed over the burial site of martyrs. Dead and the death lie very profoundly in the Christian Religion. Taylor states social rank determined the proximity of the altar. In the 13th century, the clergy allowed wealthy commuters, aristocrats and nobility to be buried inside the church, where space became less sacred.

The poor were buried in common graves which later were transformed into pits.

He explores the privatisation of the grave and the individualisation of death, where they were granted permission to purchase a grave site and built a monument in public cemeteries.

Taylor states in ancient times that the tombs used to mark the exact spot where the person was buried, while this practice was vanished in the Middle Ages. Early epitaphs were simple and non-stylized. He explores the identity of cemeteries.

Picture retrieved from the book Grave Matters

This text explains the social mindset into the drastic change between being buried in a churchyard to cemeteries. This book helps me fill the timeline and the facts behind this change. The book follows with pictures of all the graves, he found of 20th-century figures.

Picture retrieved from the book Grave Matters

Annotated Biography

Taylor, M. and Lammerts, D. (2002). Grave matters. London: Reaktion Books.

This book explains in a personal narrative the author’s relationship with cemeteries while exploring the origins of burial grounds. The mindset behind the social change from burial in churchyard and crypts to the rise and the use of cemeteries. He addresses the creation of epitaphs and tombs. He questions religions and how religion has affected the way people were buried. He explores the individuality of cemeteries as places of memory and meditation. He looks into the great philosophers such as Death Heidegger and Kierkegaard.