Revenge and Gender in Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Literature - Paperback

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

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.
Key features:
The coverage, from classical through to renaissance literature, gives a sense of how the revenge motifs work over time with gender in mind
It will appeal to a wide readership including those working in classics; medieval and renaissance literature; gender studies; revenge and revenge tragedy; the intertextual relations between ancient, medieval and early modern texts
It considers what constitutes the literary revenge tragedy tradition, suggesting points of continuity and difference as well as rethinking the parameters of the genre
Contributors include Edith Hall, Alison Findlay and Janet Clare

Back Jacket

'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, University of Exeter 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. Lesel Dawson is a Senior Lecturer at Bristol University. Fiona McHardy is Professor of Classics at the University of Roehampton. Cover image: Adolphe William Bouguereau, French (1825-1905), Orestes pursued by the Furies, 1862, oil on canvas, 91x109 5/8 in. (231.1x2784 cm) (c) Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.623 Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-1409-8

Author Biography

Lesel Dawson is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Lovesickness and Gender in Early Modern English Literature (OUP, 2008) and has published journal articles on John Ford, the Elizabethan succession crisis and early modern ideas about menstruation and Quentin Tarantino.

Fiona McHardy is Professor of Classics at the University of Roehampton. She is author of Revenge in Athenian Culture (London: Duckworth, 2008).