# Art that was inspired by the Black Death

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-that-was-inspired-by-the-black-death/731369>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 15, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-that-was-inspired-by-the-black-death/731369 "2015-09-15T16:41:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-that-was-inspired-by-the-black-death/731369/21 "2015-11-06T21:33:56Z")

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> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> From the current Broadway production of _Something Rotten_:
> 
> _Black Death!  
> It’s gonna get ya! It’s the  
> Black Death!  
> It’s gonna hit ya with those  
> Blisters, oozin’ like syrup;  
> That pesky little pestilence  
> is killing half of Europe! It’s the  
> Black Death!  
> And it’s comin’ for youuuu…_
> 
> [Here.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rks_ACx1Dw&t=5m0s)

Without venturing an opinion on rhyming “syrup” with “Europe,” I 'll note that at least it avoids the common statistical misstatement I so frequently see…that the Black Death killed “1/3 of Europe’s population.” In fact, it is credited with killing _half_ the population over the course of several years starting in 1347. But about a third died in the first year, and lots of people quote that figure. Either they have trouble grasping the full extent, or maybe they stop reading after a few sentences. At least this song is more accurate about the demographic impact than most commenters.

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-that-was-inspired-by-the-black-death/731369/22 "2015-11-10T20:39:55Z")

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> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#):
>
> It’s not a song, but Chaucer’s _Pardoner’s Tale_ references the plague.

Also, I believe the well-known lines from the prologue:

And specially, from every shires ende  
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,  
The holy blisful martir for to seke,  
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke

refers to a folk-belief of the time that veneration of St. Thomas Becket (whose shrine was at Canterbury Cathedral) had helped England scrape through the recent plague with a comparatively low death toll.

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**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-that-was-inspired-by-the-black-death/731369/23 "2015-11-11T18:33:14Z")

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> [@carlowplayer](#):
>
> Am making a comparison between the hiv outbreak of the 20th century and the Black Death outbreak of the late middle ages

The 1988 film _[The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095709/)_ (an Australian/New Zealand co-production) directly references both the Black Death and the AIDS crisis.

Starting out in a plague-stricken Cumbrian village in the 14th century, the protagonists dig down and end up in 1980s New Zealand, where the residents are facing fears of a parallel modern-day epidemic.

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