How did our favourite men and women of letters die? What had they written or said about death? What words of wisdom did they leave behind when they were at death’s door?
In an essay published in 1971 in a book called A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies, scholar S. Schoenbaum indicates that the great English dramatist and poet, William Shakespeare, might have died due to excessive consumption of alcohol.
“On 23 April 1616 Shakespeare died,” Schoenbaum writes. “About his last illness we have no certain information, although half a century later the vicar of Holy Trinity, John Ward, noted in his diary a story that must then have had currency in Stratford: ‘Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting , and it seemed the drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.”
But a little later, Schoenbaum goes on to insist that there are chances that this may not be very accurate. “But the anecdote is no more than that; medically it seems dubious, and as a gossip, Ward is not entirely reliable.”
It is said that Shakespeare died rather early at the age of 53. It is stated that through his will, Shakespeare left behind ten pounds to the poor of his home, Stratford. He also left some money to his friends, William Reynolds, Antony Nash and John Nash. His sole remaining sister, Mrs John Hart, was allowed to stay for the rest of her life in the Henley Street homestead. A daughter of the Halls received Shakespeare’s plate.
The bulk of Shakespeare’s estate went to his daughter, Susanna: After her death the entailed estate was to go to her eldest surviving son, and then to the late son’s male heirs…Susanna bore no sons and eventually the property was passed to strangers. Shakespeare left to his wife, Anne, “my linen, my second best bed” and other things.
Shakespeare was buried within the chancel of Holy Trinity in Stratford. More ordinary citizens, including his father and mother, were laid to rest in the churchyard. On the flagstone to his resting place there are written very interesting words, thought to have been written by him:
“Good friends, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.
These words are scary. They are an injunction to the living not to tamper with Shakespeare’s grave. However, they appear not to be directed to casual visitors to the church but maybe to the sextons, who sometimes had to disturb the dead in order to make room for a new grave.
In one of his key tragedies, the play Macbeth, Shakespeare has this to say about life in relation to death, through Macbeth himself, in Act 5, scene 5: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
The quote is used near the end of the play and features Macbeth’s reaction to the news that his wife, Lady Macbeth, has committed suicide. He knows his own life is near its end, as the armies of his enemies approach, and through this quote and the longer soliloquy, he expresses his new, nihilistic approach to his life.
Life comes across as a shadow or a poor actor who says a few things on the stage and disappears behind the scenes. Could it mean that life was so insignificant to Shakespeare and was he sometimes that pessimistic himself? Or, it could mean that sometimes he was given to dreary moods, like all of us?
In Julius Caesar (Act 2, Scene 2), Caesar says about death: “It seems to me most strange that men should fear (death); seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”
These lines may mean that of all the wonders in the world, it is strange that man fears death. Here Caesar is trying to say that death is the ultimate end and it will come without warning, it is a necessary end and will come when it has to. One should face it bravely and not be fearful of it.
Chinua Achebe, the great African author from Nigeria who died on 21 March 2013 in Boston, US, has a literary oeuvre that is well known throughout the world. I know people who can recite chunks and chunks of his pioneering novel, Things Fall Apart. That novel is also estimated to have sold millions of copies.
It is also not possible to agree or disagree with everything Achebe uttered or wrote. However, we all remember certain key passages from the Achebe literature and thought; passages that are worth underlining with a pen in order to be re-read on a better day.
The late Chinua Achebe is often called “the father of African Literature.” Writing in The New Yorker once, Philip Gourevitch actually says “the fact that Achebe must be remembered as not only the father but the godfather of modern African literature, owed at least as much to the decades he spent as the editor of Heinemann’s African Writers Series.
In that capacity, Achebe served as the discoverer, mentor, patron, and presenter-to-the-world of so many of the now-classic African authors of the latter half of the twentieth century.
Achebe’s agent in London is quoted in the media as having said that Achebe had died “after a brief illness.” It is further narrated, “Mr Achebe had used a wheelchair since a car accident in Nigeria in 1990 left him paralyzed from the waist down. The death was announced by Brown University in Providence, R.I., where Mr Achebe had been a professor of Africana studies since 2009. No cause was reported. Mr Achebe made his home in the United
States since 1990 following injuries from a car crash in Lagos that left him paralyzed from the waist down.”
It was widely reported that Achebe was buried on May 23 in his hometown in Ogidi, Anambra state. President Goodluck Jonathan attended in the company of Ghana’s President Mahama. After the church service, Mr Achebe was buried in a mausoleum on the family compound in a private ceremony. Mr Achebe’s body had arrived back in Nigeria from the US, where he died at the age of 82.
Even though he was treated after the 1990 accident, Ike, Achebe’s son said that his father had internal injuries which kept bringing problems, coupled with the fact that he was paralyzed. This means that his family knew that since his injury, Achebe was of very delicate health.
The family, Ike said, was always with Achebe in his troubles. For many in the family, Achebe’s death was not a shock but it would be for those not close to his father, Ike pointed out. He said that one thing he admired about his father was his courage. The father, Ike said, did not allow his accident to affect his work.
However, one thing that was discussed by many after Achebe’s burial was the conspicuous absence of two of Nigeria’s literary giants, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and notable poet and playwright John Pepper Clark. They were his contemporaries and people expected them to attend. Were they jealousy towards Achebe? Were they bitter about something? Were they not invited? Speculations continue to this day.
One of the most touching moments in all Achebe literature is the death of one of his most affable characters, the boy Ikemefuna. In a settlement with a neighbouring tribe, Umuofia wins a virgin and a fifteen-year-old boy.
Okonkwo takes charge of the boy, Ikemefuna, and finds an ideal son in him. Nwoye likewise forms a strong attachment to the newcomer.
Despite his fondness for Ikemefuna and despite the fact that the boy begins to call him “father,” Okonkwo does not let himself show any affection for him.
Ogbuefi Ezeudu, a respected village elder, informs Okonkwo in a private conversation that the Oracle has said that Ikemefuna must be killed. He tells Okonkwo that because Ikemefuna calls him “father,” Okonkwo should not take part in the boy’s death. Okonkwo lies to Ikemefuna, telling him that they must return him to his home village. Nwoye bursts into tears.
As he walks with the men of Umuofia, Ikemefuna thinks about seeing his mother. To calm himself, Ikemefuna resorts to a childhood game:
“He sang (a song) in his mind, and walked to its beat. If the song ended on his right foot, his mother was alive. If it ended on his left, she was dead. No, not dead, but ill. It ended on the right. She was alive and well. He sang the song again, and it ended on the left. But the second time did not count….”
After several hours of walking, some of Okonkwo’s clansmen attack the boy with machetes. Ikemefuna runs to Okonkwo for help. But Okonkwo, who doesn’t wish to look weak in front of his fellow tribesmen, cuts the boy down despite the Oracle’s admonishment. When Okonkwo returns home, his own son, Nwoye, deduces that his friend Ikemefuna is dead.
Death in Achebe literature is definitive, a way of putting to rest the place and role of a character. You see it also in the dramatic death of Okonkwo through suicide.
Bessie Amelia Emery Head (6 July 1937 – 17 April 1986) was a South African writer who, though born in South Africa, is usually considered Botswana’s most influential writer. She wrote novels, short fiction and autobiographical works that are infused with spiritual questioning and reflection.
Head was born in 1937. Her mother was a member of a prominent family, suffered from mental illness, and was white, while her father was a black servant in her maternal family’s household. Their relationship was illegal in South Africa at the time of Head’s birth, and she was sent into foster care as a baby.
Head trained to become a teacher and taught for a few years, but her true passion was found in writing. Along with writing for various newspapers in Cape Town, Head developed an interest in South African politics, something that eventually led to her being arrested.
Head’s life was constantly in a state of flux. She suffered from a depressive personality, and she often experienced financial problems. Head married her husband Harold Head in 1961, and they had a son, also named Harold, in 1962. Soon after, her marriage was on the rocks, and when she and her son were given visas for neighbouring Botswana, Head left her marriage and South Africa for good to teach in Serowe.
There, Head taught and worked on a farm, gathering information for her books. She gained citizenship 15 years after moving to Botswana, and was considered a refugee until that point. Towards the end of her life, she began to exhibit signs of mental illness. She died in 1986 at the age of 48 as a result of hepatitis.
Biographer Gillian Eilersen describes Bessie Head’s last couple of years in a moving way. It is said that Bessie started to work on her biography. She said she needed a year to work on it. Meanwhile she would walk down to the Off Sales store on the main road and buy six cans of beer.
Then she would walk up the hill to her home. By the time she arrived, she would have drank four of them. Although she was no serious drinker her liver was seriously affected. Brandy and gin began to gain control over her.
By March 1986 she was drinking about a bottle a day. Her skin became yellowish. At the hospital the doctors diagnosed hepatitis and wished to admit her but Bessie refused. She got medication and strict orders not to touch alcohol.
On the 16th of April 1986 she became very weak and collapsed. An ambulance was called. In hospital, she went into a coma. Her liver was not functioning. There were suggestions to fly her to a Harare hospital but she died soon afterwards.
Bessie Head was buried at the Botolaote cemetery as she had requested. It is a sandy and dusty place overlooking the Serowe plain with a broad, sweeping vision. “I wonder what profound statement I’d make to God the day I die.
I mean that last despairing statement about waiting and waiting to simplify one’s life and all the time it was a tangle of evil,” Bessie Head once said.
Many of Bessie Head’s works are set in Serowe, such as the novels When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971), and A Question of Power (1973). The three are also autobiographical; When Rain Clouds Gather is based on her experience living on a development farm, Maru incorporates her experience of being considered racially inferior, and A Question of Power draws on her understanding of what it was like to experience acute psychological distress.
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