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
âAdam Hansen, Marco Prandoni and Cornelis van der Haven
Part 1 Revenge, Religion, and Politics
1 The Vengeance of God in Early Modern French Tragedies
âAnne Graham
2 âMother, Why Does He Make Us Suffer?â Dutch Revenge Tragedy and the Problem of Theodicy
âTom Laureys
3 The Jesuit Monopoly on Revenge in Joseph Plays
âDinah Wouters
4 Divine Vengeance in Racineâs Biblical Plays: Esther and Athalie as Scriptural Revenge Tragedies
âSarah I. Fengler
5 From Medea to Theodoric Contrasting Conceptions of Revenge on the German Stage in the 1660s
âHelen Watanabe-OâKelly
6 âWhere at the Doorway Crouches Revengeâ The âFlorisV-Playsâ (1613â1638) as a Revisitation of Revenge Tragedy in the Republic of the United Provinces
âMarco Prandoni
Part 2 Revenge, Affect, and Representation
7 The Playâs the Thing: Deliberating Revenge in Hamlet
âVanessa Lim
8 âGhosts Will Haunt Me Stillâ: Revenge and Gender in Coriolanus and Macbeth
âKaroline Johanna Baumann
9 Vision and Vengeance in The Changeling
âAdam Hansen
10 âWhat Does It Matter Who I Am?â: Racial and Sexual Others in Two Spanish âRevenge Tragediesâ
âTim Vergeer
11 Vengeance of the Heart: Neoclassical Theatre and the Internalisation of Revenge
âCornelis 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