Taedium Vitae - Farewell Notes of Japanese Literary Suicides by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert

I have followed A Journey Around My Skull blog for a while now, and I find fascinating almost everything that is posted on it, this time they have published a very interesting article about the culture of literary suicide in Japan.

"In Japan, longstanding tradition has perpetuated several honorable categories of seppuku, or ritual suicide; a fact reflected by the Japanese language, which contains many terms for specific forms of shi, or death. Shinju is the word for suicide which fulfills a pact between lovers. Roshigokuraku-ojo is the death (of a woman) through prolonged sexual intercourse."

For the article click here and a few weeks back I posted Yukio Mishima's "Yûkoku or Rite of Love and Death" that connects with this article very well so maybe you will want to see it if you haven't or see it again if you have here.