In spite of our clever and urban modern logic, our sharp common sense of destruction and reaction versus the more gratifying construction and proactive action, we still weave talionic plots that go beyond staged tragedies and past eras. Revenge continues to be popular in fiction as in non-fictional realms. As an audience, we enjoy films and books that hail the ‘getting even’ philosophy; even our most renowned children’s stories are seeded in vindication and retribution (Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, and Snow White, just to name a few), as our television programs, targeted to a more mature audience, are intended to be (see Charmed and Scrubs, as just two successful examples).
This volume provides a riveting account of the role of revenge as muse to many characters of modern literature from various national origins and of modern societies with their own embedded cultural reactions as well as a diversity of approaches to wishes of violent counterattacks. Through a plurality of literary subjects and perspectives, this publication provides an overview much needed in our libraries and bookstores. Departing from the psychological complexities in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the contributors of this volume focus on chivalric avenges, models for violence management, and reinterpretations of the code of honor through the analysis of Hispanic, Italian, and French texts; emphasize the patient craftiness and adroit deceit of which women are capable, outmaneuvering men and their cold manipulations; provide documented incidents involving more than fictitious personages as in the case of an Italian portraitist active between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This volume is a unique collection of topics, with a useful and practical approach to an abrasive phenomenon that remains relevant in our modern times.
