Life without End

A groundbreaking study examining major literary treatments of the idea of earthly immortality, throwing into relief fascinating instances of human self-awareness over the past three hundred years. The idea of earthly immortality has a tradition in literature dating to the Gilgamesh epic. But what would it mean to attain such immortality? Answers are suggested in novels and plays that explore the theme using varieties of Borges's "rational imagination," often in connection with projections of bio