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In the late 1800s, the character of Death became known as the Grim Reaper in English literature. The earliest appearance of the name "Grim Reaper" in English is in the 1847 book The Circle of Human Life: [21] [22] [23] All know full well that life cannot last above seventy, or at the most eighty years.
The Grim Reaper is a popular personification of death in Western culture in the form of a hooded skeletal figure wearing a black robe and carrying a scythe. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Since the 14th century, European art connected each of these various physical features to death, though the name "Grim Reaper" and the artistic popularity of all the features ...
The human skull is an obvious and frequent symbol of death, found in many cultures and religious traditions. [1] Human skeletons and sometimes non-human animal skeletons and skulls can also be used as blunt images of death; the traditional figures of the Grim Reaper – a black-hooded skeleton with a scythe – is one use of such symbolism. [2]
The scythe is a tool used to harvest crops, just as the Grim Reaper must harvest souls, and, of course, this reaper is a skeleton because skeletons are representative of death,” says Williams ...
They are often amongst the most powerful and important entities in a given tradition, reflecting the fact that death, like birth, is central to the human experience. In religions where a single god is the primary object of worship, the representation of death is usually that god's antagonist, and the struggle between the two is central to the ...
In Isaiah, the lifespan of human beings is compared to the short lifespan of grass: "The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass" . The expression memento mori developed with the growth of Christianity, which emphasized Heaven, Hell, Hades and salvation of the soul in the afterlife.
Death is personified in many cultures, with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper, Azrael, the Hindu god Yama, and Father Time. In the west, the Grim Reaper, or figures similar to it, is the most popular depiction of death in western cultures. [117]
Although lacking the eminent scythe, his portrayal nevertheless resembles the Grim Reaper. [44] Henry Wadsworth Longfellow mentions Azrael in "The Reaper and the Flowers" as an angel of death, but he is not equated with Samael, the angel of death in Jewish lore who appears as a fallen and malevolent angel, instead. [45]