Revisiting Revenge Tragedy explores one of the most popular and influential genres of early modern theatre. Revenge tragedies resonated with audiences and authors because of their explicit and often horrific depictions of political instability, religious violence, and affective distress. In innovative and provocative ways, this book situates the political, religious, and affective dimensions of such plays within the transnational dynamics of their inception and dissemination across a conflicted Europe, raising questions for us now about authority, tyranny, and justice. Moreover, detailed case studies demonstrate how depicting revenge questioned or evinced sometimes radical sexual, cultural, and political identities and positions.
Contributors include Karoline Johanna Baumann, Sarah I. Fengler, Anne Graham, Adam Hansen, Tom Laureys, Vanessa Lim, Marco Prandoni, Cornelis van der Haven, Tim Vergeer, Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly, and Dinah Wouters.
Adam Hansen is Senior Lecturer in English at Northumbria University. He has published widely on early modern literature in its own context and ours.
Marco Prandoni is Associate Professor in Dutch Studies at the University of Bologna. His research examines intercultural dynamics in early moder theatre and contemporary culture, with a specific focus on migration-related issues, cultural memory, and ecocritics.
Cornelis van der Haven is Associate Professor in early modern Dutch literature at Ghent University. He has published widely about Dutch and German theatre, epic poetry and early modern cultures of violence.
Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors
Introduction Adam Hansen, Marco Prandoni and Cornelis van der Haven
Part 1 Revenge, Religion, and Politics
1 The Vengeance of God in Early Modern French Tragedies Anne Graham
2 “Mother, Why Does He Make Us Suffer?” Dutch Revenge Tragedy and the Problem of Theodicy Tom Laureys
3 The Jesuit Monopoly on Revenge in Joseph Plays Dinah Wouters
4 Divine Vengeance in Racine’s Biblical Plays: Esther and Athalie as Scriptural Revenge Tragedies Sarah I. Fengler
5 From Medea to Theodoric Contrasting Conceptions of Revenge on the German Stage in the 1660s Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly
6 ‘Where at the Doorway Crouches Revenge’ The ‘FlorisV-Plays’ (1613–1638) as a Revisitation of Revenge Tragedy in the Republic of the United Provinces Marco Prandoni
Part 2 Revenge, Affect, and Representation
7 The Play’s the Thing: Deliberating Revenge in Hamlet Vanessa Lim
8 ‘Ghosts Will Haunt Me Still’: Revenge and Gender in Coriolanus and Macbeth Karoline Johanna Baumann
9 Vision and Vengeance in The Changeling Adam Hansen
10 ‘What Does It Matter Who I Am?’: Racial and Sexual Others in Two Spanish ‘Revenge Tragedies’ Tim Vergeer
11 Vengeance of the Heart: Neoclassical Theatre and the Internalisation of Revenge Cornelis van der Haven
Index of Names and Characters
Academics, University Libraries, students and professionals in the field of theatre studies, literary studies, early modern history, emotion studies, performance studies. Keywords: violence, emotions, performance, early modern history, renaissance, baroque, Neo-Latin, Dutch, French. English, German literature