Alive, yet dead: Mourning in the Victorian period, Sandra Franz

This article explores the attitude towards death through two different sources – a photograph of parents posing with their deceased infant as an example of post­mortem photography and Alfred Lord Tennyson’s elegies In Memoriam published in 1850. It will argue that even though they are very different by nature the sources share some striking similarities. The pain about the experienced loss is evident and central in both of them.