Revenge and Gender in Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Literature

by Lesel Dawson (Editor), Fiona McHardy (Editor)

Overview

Explores the representation of revenge from Classical to early modern literature

This collection explores a range of literary and historical texts from ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Iceland and medieval and early modern England to provide an understanding of wider historical continuities and discontinuities in representations of gender and revenge.

It brings together approaches from literary criticism, gender theory, feminism, drama, philosophy and ethics to allow greater discussion between these subjects and across historical periods and to provide a more complex and nuanced understanding of the ways in which ideas about gender and revenge interrelate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474454643
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	11/27/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Lesel Dawson is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Bristol. Fiona McHardy is Professor of Classics at the University of Roehampton.

Table of Contents

Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements and Dedication
Introduction: Female Fury and the Masculine Spirit of Vengeance, Lesel Dawson
The Gendering of Revenge
1. Why are the Erinyes Female? or, What is so Feminine about Revenge?, Edith Hall2. Re-marking Revenge in Early Modern Drama, Alison Findlay
Friends and Family: 'Revenging Home'
3. Vengeance and Male Devotion in Laxdæla saga and Njáls saga, Ian Felce
4. 'Now I am Medea': Gender, Identity and the Birth of Revenge in Seneca's Medea, Kathrin Winter
5. The Avenging Daughter in King Lear, Marguerite Tassi
6. 'Brother Unkind': Annabella's Heart in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Sara Eaton
Women's Weapons
7. Cursing-Prayers and Female Vengeance in the Ancient Greek World, Lydia Matthews and Irene Salvo
8. 'The Power of our Mouths': Gossip as a Female Mode of Revenge, Fiona McHardy
9. 'Women's Weapons': Education and Female Revenge on the Early Modern Stage, Chloe Preedy
Women Transmogrified
10. The Vengeful Lioness in Greek Tragedy: A Posthumanist Perspective, Alessandra Abbattista
11. 'She's Turned Fury': Women Transmogrified in Revenge Plays, Janet Clare
Lamentation, Gender Roles and Vengeance
12. A Phrygian Tale of Love and Revenge: Oenone Paridi (Ovid Heroides 5), Andreas N. Michalopoulos
13. Lament and Vengeance in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, Annie Baden-Danetree
14. What's Hecuba to Shakespeare?, Tanya Pollard
15. 'Nursed in Blood': Masculinity and Grief in Marston's Antonio's Revenge, Rebecca Yearling
16. Outfacing Vengeance: Heroic Dying in Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and Ford's The Broken Heart, Lesel Dawson
Details of Contributors

What People are Saying About This

The intersection of gender trouble with the ambivalence of revenge provides a theme sufficiently broad to be of general interest, and yet sufficiently well defined to produce a coherent volume, in which intriguing connections are on display between various cultures, periods, and textual genres.

Richard Seaford

The intersection of gender trouble with the ambivalence of revenge provides a theme sufficiently broad to be of general interest, and yet sufficiently well defined to produce a coherent volume, in which intriguing connections are on display between various cultures, periods, and textual genres.

Editorial Reviews

[T]his book is an important, and powerful, example of how interdisciplinary and cross-period studies can illuminate otherwise-overlooked points that lead to essential reconsiderations of subjects…

Bryn Mawr Classical Review - Melissa Ridley Elmes

The intersection of gender trouble with the ambivalence of revenge provides a theme sufficiently broad to be of general interest, and yet sufficiently well defined to produce a coherent volume, in which intriguing connections are on display between various cultures, periods, and textual genres.

Richard Seaford