Women and revenge in Shakespeare : gender, genre, and ethics / Marguerite A. Tassi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tassi, Marguerite A., 1965-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Characters--Women.

Shakespeare, William.

Revenge in literature.

Women in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (344 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Selinsgrove, Pa. : Susquehanna University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Can there be a virtue in vengeance? Can revenge do ethical work? Can revenge be the obligation of women? This wide-ranging literary study looks at Shakespeare's women and finds bold answers to questions such as these. A surprising number of Shakespeare's female characters respond to moral outrages by expressing a strong desire for vengeance. This book's analysis of these characters and their circumstances offers incisive critical perceptions of feminine anger, ethics, and agency and challenges our assumptions about the role of gender in revenge. In this provocative book, Marguerite A. Tassi counters longstanding critical opinions on revenge: that it is the sole province of men in Western literature and culture, that it is a barbaric, morally depraved, irrational instinct, and that it is antithetical to justice. Countless examples have been mined from Shakespeare's dramas to reveal women's profound concerns with revenge and justice, honor and shame, crime and punishment. In placing the critical focus on avenging women, this book significantly redresses a gender imbalance in scholarly treatments of revenge, particularly in early modern literature.

Contents:

Women and revenge: some literary, iconographic, and intellectual foundations

Valorous tongues, lamenting voices: the expressive ethics of female inciters in Shakespeare's plays

Reporting the women's causes aright: wounded names and revenge narratives in Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, and Much ado about nothing

Hecuba's legacy: wounded maternity and vengeance in the First tetralogy and Titus Andronicus

"Revenging home": Cordelia and the virtue of vengeance

Twelfth night, or what Maria wills

Feminine vindication and the social drama of revenge in The merry wives of Windsor

The quality of revenge: debt, reciprocity, and Portia's "vantage" in The merchant of Venice

Women's gall, women's grace: female friendship, moral rebuke, and the vindictive passions.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-57591-163-9

OCLC:

720064059