The Savage God: A Study of SuicideUsing the untimely death of the poet and friend, Sylvia Plath, as a point of departure, Al Alvarez confronts the controversial and often taboo area of human behaviour: suicide. The Savage God explores the cultural attitudes, theories, truths and fallacies surrounding suicide and refracts them through the windows of philosophy, art and literature: following the black thread leading from Dante, through Donne, Chatterton and the Romantic Agony, to Dada and Pavese. Entwined within this sensitive study is the author's deeply personal account of his own unsuccessful suicide attempt, and together they form the most fascinating and compelling meditation on the Savage God at the heart of human existence. |
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absurd accepted already argument artist became becomes began believe Bell Jar Biathanatos body called century CESARE PAVESE Chatterton Christian Church commit suicide Cowper creative crime Dada Dadaist dead death instinct depression despair despite destructive died Donne Donne's Dostoievsky Ellen West everything example fact fantasies father feel felt finally Freud friends gesture guilt hanged horror imagination intense John Donne kill kind later less letter literary lives logic London longer means melancholia melancholy moral mortal sin murder nature never night once pain Pavese Perhaps pleasure pleasure principle poet poetry political primitive rational reason Roman seemed self-murder sense simply sleeping social style suicide suicide-rate super-ego survive Sylvia Plath T. S. Eliot terror theory thing Thomas Chatterton thought tion took totalitarian turned verse W. B. YEATS wanted Werther whole wife words writing wrote young