Reading the Gravestones of Old New England

Book excerpt: The graveyards of old New England hold an incredible range of poetic messages in the epitaphs etched into the gravestones, each a profound expression of emotion, culture, religion, and literature. These epitaphs are old, but their themes are timeless: mourning and faith, grief and hope, loss, and memory. This book tells the story of a years-long walk among gravestones and shares insights gained along the way. It identifies the source texts and authors chosen for these stones; interprets something of the tastes and beliefs of the people who did the choosing; offers some hypotheses on the various ways these texts were accessible to readers in remote towns and villages; gives a brief summary of the religious context of the times; and reflects on how the language and literature chosen for these epitaphs express these peoples' conflicted and evolving attitudes towards life, death, and eternity.