Karl S. Guthke: Epitaph Culture in the West. Variations on a Theme in Cultural History.

• Hugh Macrae Richmond

Karl Guthke defines his goal in this book as “to examine virtually the entire body of printed Western anthologies of epitaphs, with a view to determining the reason why they were assembled, or in other words, in the hope of identifying, on the basis of whatever editorial comment or apologia there may be, the specific nature of the fascination that inspired them.” (36) What emerges is a comparative study, beginning roughly from the start of European printing, of the evolution of one of the most broadly based conventions of Western culture, which serves to identify the evolution of values, contents, and functions enshrined in the form. As love and death are among the most central of human concerns (perhaps only surpassed by the needs for mere survival), the study falls broadly into the discipline which Zevedei Barbu has called “Historical Psychology”, and this is confirmed by the generalizations about attitudes to death consolidated in the book’s epilogue.

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