cause of young death <reflects historical times>

[soheil1]

Hi.
What does it mean that:
...the precise cause of young death reflects historical times....?
(http://www.musicandartsinaction.net/index.php/maia/article/download/dyingmourning/77)

Thanks in advance

 

[Copyright]

Please give us a complete sentence, and up to three more sentences, so that we have the context of the quote. Your link is to a downloadable PDF, which few people are going to download to answer your question.

 

[soheil1]

Eternal love in death is purer than any earthly love, as the operas Tristan and
Isolde (Richard Wagner, 1857-9) and La Bohème (Giacomo Puccini, 1896) and the
pop song Leader of the Pack (The Shangri-Las, 1964) make clear, though of course
the precise cause of young death reflects historical times: consumption in the
nineteenth century, versus hot rodding it down main street in the mid twentieth.
Many composers, from Bach to Brahms to John Lennon to Dolly Parton to Eric
Clapton, have written music arising out of their own personal loss and grief (Berger,
2006) and, in the case of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs (1948), his own impending
death.

 

[Copyright]

Eternal love in death is purer than any earthly love, as the operas Tristan and Isolde (Richard Wagner, 1857-9) and La Bohème (Giacomo Puccini, 1896) and the pop song Leader of the Pack (The Shangri-Las, 1964) make clear, though of course the precise cause of young death reflects historical times: consumption in the nineteenth century, versus hot rodding it down main street in the mid twentieth.

It's just saying that in art the cause of death will be different depending on the time in history: in the 19th century it was consumption; in the mid-20th century, it was in a car crash. Which makes sense since there were no cars in the 19th century.