Memento Mori and the Gothic

Recent enquiries into the correlation between death studies and the Gothic beg for closer evaluation to the historical manifestations of death as a potent visual signifier, whose efficacy in provoking contemplation has been, and continues to be, referred to as memento mori. This Element provides a chronology that places memento mori in the ecclesiastical ideations of Medieval Europe, noting its absence as a specific phrase in Antiquity, while delineating its transference into the realm of entertainment during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Major works from the canon of Gothic literature, specifically The Castle of Otranto, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and The Monk, in addition to the life of Thomas Lovell Beddoes, demonstrate how memento mori covers a variety of responses that expanded its didactic intent, representing reactions to the macabre that are both internalised and externalised while pushing the term into a broader conceptual framework and governs its current usage.