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Chapter Five of The Graveyard Book is entitled " The Danse Macabre". The Danse Macabre or the Dance of Death is a medieval allegory of the universality of death. Illustrations of the allegory typically include four skeletons including one in power, a youth, and one of great beauty. Hans Holbein created a series of 41 woodcut engravings of the Dance of Death from 1522-24. They depict religious scenes of death of individuals from all levels of society. The allegory was meant to be a reminder of how fragile and vain earthly life is.
That's very interesting. I never thought of looking it up. I love wood cut art, those are great pictures. Every time I see a dancing skeleton I can't help but think of the Grateful Dead.
ReplyDeleteDanse Macabre is also a fantastic tone poem by Camille Saint-Saëns. Here's a link with the audio:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM
While I was reading this section, this piece was all I could hear.
Every time I see a dancing skeleton I can't help but think of the Grateful Dead.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm imagining the various graveyard ghosts at a Dead concert. I'm sure they'd fit right in (or not even be noticed, depending on how far gone attendees were.)
In one of the Grateful Dead's videos for the song "Touch of Grey", it's just the band playing in the video. But what makes the video is that one minute they are flesh and bones and the next the are a band of skeletons. It was one of their more popular songs, the video is great. I wonder if they danced they macabre?
ReplyDeleteAll this talk about dancing skeletons has prompted me to think of that specific musical scene in Tim Burton's Corpse Bride when the skeletons recount Emily's tragic tale of how she came to be the Corpse Bride.
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