Death anxiety refers to the human experience of death awareness and the accompanying inescapable disquiet it provokes. It is a phenomenon in human existence which has attracted substantial studies from existential and psychological perspectives. Noting that every individual experiences this anxiety at some point in life, largely as a result of the awareness of the inevitability of death, the manner and extent to which it is experienced vary from individuals. Meanwhile, existential reflections have described ‘death acceptance’ as the healthy route to lessening this angst. It therefore presupposes that acceptance of death (i.e. knowing that one is a being-towards-death and therefore embracing and acknowledging it) is existentially therapeutic. On this note, in studying J. P. Clark’s Of Sleep and Old Age, artistic creativity is being constructed in the study as an existential therapy against death anxiety for the poetic persona. It is premised, on the one hand, on the poet’s eloquent vision of the boredom of existence and the horror of death which characterize the atmosphere of the text. On the other, the poet’s age has been considered as a factor-agent which has bestowed on him the capacity to be conscious of an imminent death, thereby accepting it via keen reflections in his art. The study adopts two theoretical models in existential studies: (1) Monika Ardelt’s ‘Wisdom’, ‘Religiosity’ and ‘Purpose in Life’ and (2) John Sommers-Flanagan and Rita Sommers-Flanagan’s model of ‘Existential Therapy’ to assess the sway and/or centrality of death anxiety to understanding the text.

中文翻译：

---

衰老的诗人和死亡焦虑：约翰·佩珀·克拉克（John Pepper Clark）的《睡眠与老年》中的作为生存疗法的艺术

死亡焦虑是指人类对死亡的认识以及随之而来的不可避免的烦恼。这是人类生存中的一种现象，已从存在和心理学的角度吸引了大量研究。注意到每个人在生活中的某个时刻都会经历这种焦虑，这主要是由于人们意识到死亡的必然性，因此经历的方式和程度因人而异。同时，存在的反思将“死亡接受”描述为减轻这种焦虑的健康途径。因此，它以接受死亡为前提（即知道死亡是一种即将死亡的人，因此接受并承认它）是存在性的治疗。基于此，在研究JP Clark的《睡眠与老年》时，在这项研究中，艺术创造​​力正在作为一种应对诗歌人物角色死亡焦虑的生存疗法。一方面，这是基于诗人对存在乏味和死亡恐怖的雄辩雄辩的想象，这是文本气氛的特征。另一方面，诗人的年龄被认为是因素的代理，赋予了他意识到即将死亡的能力，从而通过对艺术的敏锐反思来接受它。该研究在存在性研究中采用了两种理论模型：（1）莫妮卡·阿德尔特（Monika Ardelt）的“智慧”，“宗教信仰”和“人生目的”，以及（2）约翰·索默斯-弗拉纳根和丽塔·索默斯-弗拉纳根的“现有疗法”模型来评估摇摆和/或死亡焦虑的中心性来理解文本。