Explores modern humanity's relationship with death as reflected in literature, history, and society, evaluating how perceptions about death and the experience of grief have changed, citing the influence of such events as Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and theSeptember 11 attacks.

"A career-spanning selection of the lucid, courageous, and boldly political prose of National Book Award winner Adrienne Rich. Adrienne Rich was an award-winning poet, influential essayist, radical feminist, and major intellectual voice of her generation. Essential Essays gathers twenty-five of her most renowned essays into one volume, demonstrating the lasting brilliance of her voice, her prophetic vision, and her revolutionary views on social justice....

This companion reader provides critical and theoretical writing by more than 100 women writers from the fourteenth century to the present, as well as six critical casebooks on major authors, works, or literary movements included in the Anthology.