The Renaissance Discovery of Violence, from Boccaccio to Shakespeare

(Hardback)

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Many have wondered why the works of Shakespeare and other early modern writers are so filled with violence, with murder and mayhem. This work explains how and why, putting the literature of the European Renaissance in the context of the history of violence. Personal violence was on the decline in Europe beginning in the fifteenth century, but warfare became much deadlier and the stakes of war became much higher as the new nation-states vied for hegemony and the New World became a target of a shattering invasion. There are times when Renaissance writers seem to celebrate violence, but more commonly they anatomized it and were inclined to focus on victims as well as warriors on the horrors of violence as well as the need for force to protect national security and justice. In Renaissance writing, violence has lost its innocence.

Reviews

In Robert Appelbaums Renaissance Discovery of Violence, the discovery in question takes multiple forms: as a re-invention of violence through new ritual shapes and physical instruments, but also as a representation of violence through art and language, and an uncovering of the moral economies that underlie its use. The resulting study, both wide-ranging and incisively detailed, revels in the nuance and complexity of its subject-matter. Bruce Boehrer, Bertram H. Davis Professor, English Department, Florida State University, US

Robert Appelbaum has done it again with this sweeping study of how European attitudes toward violence shifted and the enormous repercussions this held for artistic expression.... The books readings, taken together, cast breathtaking light upon Shakespeares tragedies. George Hoffmann, Professor of French, University of Michigan, US

Renaissance writers differed dramatically on the subject of violence. Some invented new violent delights, some sought an end to violence, but all grappled with the challenge that violence posed to representation. In this learned and energetic study, Robert Appelbaum un-conceals the work that violence performs at the heart of the periods most characteristic genres, shown to us as changing under the forming pressure of acts of violence throughout and beyond Europe. The Renaissance Discovery of Violence is literary and cultural history at its most capacious and revelatory. David Currell, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Author Bio

Born in New York City and educated at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, Robert Appelbaum is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Uppsala University, Sweden.