Revenge Tragedy
Aeschylus to Armageddon
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:4th Sep '97
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Revenge has long been central to European culture. From Homer to Nietzsche, St Paul to Sylvia Plath, numerous major authors have been fascinated by its emotional intensity, and by the questions which it raises about violence, sexuality, death, and the nature of justice. In this exceptionally learned and lively book, John Kerrigan explores the literature of vengeance from Greek tragedy to postmodernism, ranging through material in several languages, as well as through opera, painting, and film, while opening new perspectives on such famailiar English works as Hamlet, Clarissa, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. By means of broad historical analysis, but also through subtle attention to the fabric of individual texts, Kerrigan shows how evolving attitudes to retribution have shaped and reconstituted tragedy in the West, and elucidates the remarkable capacity of his ancient theme to generate innovative works of art. Although Revenge Tragedy: Aeschylus to Armageddon is a literary study, it makes fresh and ambitious use of ideas from anthropology, social theory, and moral philosophy. As a result it will be of interest to students in a variety of disciplines, as well as to the general reader.
Brilliant and subtly inclusive...In both its benign and malign aspects, which are not easy to disintangle as Kerrigan disentangles them in his incisive, unsardonic prose, revenge seems integral to all moral values... It is the connections Kerrigan uses his theme to make, and makes so convincingly, and the fact that he consistently reads afresh writers and works swamped by commentary that makes Revenge Tragedy such an extraordinary book. * Adam Philips, London Review of Books *
An astonishingly learned, versatile study, which sweeps from Orestes to Bernard Williams, Euripides to Andrea Dworkin, medieval romance to the modern media, television and film... This is a major work of literary scholarship, daunting in scope and subtle in perception. * Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement *
Exemplary learning [and] exceptional scholarly curiosityIt includes brilliant pages on Greek tragedy and Shakespearean comedy, with an unfashionable tribute to Bergson, arising from the recognition that revenge can be funny. It is all rather dazzlinga book to disturb anyone's intellectual peace. * Frank Kermode, New York Review of Books *
Kerrigan's book ... homes in on specific moments in western representation, coming to those moments with tact and scholarly precision. Scholars interested in a wide range of topics will find much to consider in Kerrigan's book. * AUMLA *
- Winner of Winner of Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 1998.
ISBN: 9780198184515
Dimensions: 215mm x 138mm x 26mm
Weight: 572g
420 pages