Grim Reaper
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. Since the 14th century, European art connected these various physical features to death, though the name "Grim Reaper" and the artistic popularity of all the features combined emerged as late as the 19th century. Sometimes, particularly when winged, the character is equated with the Angel of Death. The scythe as an artistic symbol of death has deliberate agricultural associations since the medieval period. The tool symbolizes the removal of human souls from their bodies in huge numbers, with the analogy being to a farmer (reaper) cutting through large swaths of grain crops during harvest.[1]
History
The Grim Reaper is a blend of various medieval or older European personifications of death, with its earliest direct inputs evident in art of 14th-century Europe in connection with the Black Death then ravaging the continent.[2][3] Several "Triumph of Death" paintings from Italy in that century show the character of death as either an animate skeleton or a human-like figure with wings carrying a scythe.[1] A horseback rider killing humans with an outstretched weapon is another common symbol for mass die-offs in this era,[4] as is the Danse Macabre, a group of dancing skeletons leading people to their graves: also a possible input.[5]
Romance language cultures, like in Italy and France,[5] traditionally tend to imagine death as female, while Slavic and Germanic language cultures, like English-speaking ones, tend to imagine death as male.[1] Time and the harvest were already artistically connected with death in the medieval period.[1] During the Renaissance, an early Grim Reaper image arose that conflated the aforementioned features of skeletons and scythes, possibly further conflating the ancient Greek deity Chronos, god of time, and the similarly-named Cronus, a Titan associated with the harvest, both of whom are also frequently depicted wielding a scythe or sickle;[3] Thanatos, the god of death, may also be related though he has few physical features of note.[1] The Grim Reaper's black cloak over a skeletal body may be as recent as the 19th century, related to the wearing of black at funerals.[3] In a church in England, a wooden figurine dating from 1640 portrayed a hooded and robed skeleton carrying a scythe and hourglass.[5]
Modern times
The full Grim Reaper appearance (hooded skeleton, black robe, and scythe) became common by the mid-19th century, for instance as described in multiple short stories of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe.[5] The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come has a similar look in the classic 1843 novella A Christmas Carol by the British writer Charles Dickens, wearing a black hooded cloak that conceals its whole face and body, its only visible body part being a single gesturing hand.[3] The name "Grim Reaper" itself first appeared in English only in the 1840s.[6][7][1] The Reaper has been variously portrayed in modern media ranging from books to films to television series to songs, in both dramatic and comedic works.[3]
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Macabre Origins of the Grim Reaper". Storied. PBS Digital Studios. Video on YouTube.
- ^ McKenna, Amy (2016). "Where Does the Concept of a 'Grim Reaper' Come From?" Britannica.
- ^ a b c d e "Grim Reaper". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). December 2024.
- ^ Gicala, Agnieszka (2012). "Blend Elaboration as a Mechanism of Concept Change in Examples of Death the Grim Reaper" in Languages in Contact. Scientific Board, 93.
- ^ a b c d Card, Lorin; Wilson, Freeda (January 2006). "Death-defining personifications: the grim Reaper vs. la Grande Faucheuse". In LACUS Forum (Vol. 33). Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States. pp. 85-89.
- ^ Harper, Douglas (2024). "Grim". The Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ "Grim Reaper". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2024.