Revenge Tragedy: Aeschylus to Armageddon

by John Kerrigan

Revenge has long been a central theme in Western culture. From Homer to Nietzsche, from St. Paul to Sylvia Plath, major writers have been fascinated by its emotional intensity and by the questions it raises about the nature of justice, violence, sexuality, and death. John Kerrigan employs both wide-ranging historical analysis and subtle attention to individual texts to explore the culture of vengeance in several languages and genres. Thus, he shows how evolving attitudes to retribution have shaped and reconstituted tragedy in the West and elucidates the remarkable capacity of this ancient theme to generate innovative works of art. Although this book is a literary study, it makes use of 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Criticism

420 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Pseudonym for Charles Whiting

Reviews

[Bloodorange · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic and helped me a lot when I was writing on Shakespeare.