Concentric: Studies in English Literature and Linguistics
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/handle/20.500.12235/219
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Item The Crime Scene of Revenge Tragedy(英語學系, 2012-03-??) Carol Mejia LaPerleAnalyzing the parallel gestures of ritualistic brutality deployed in the cannibal banquet of Seneca’s Thyestes and Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, I reveal how the genre of revenge tragedies is simultaneously an instance of, and challenge to, Georges Bataille’s socio-economic theory of excess within a general economy. Excess, and not scarcity, is the motive and the condition for revenge. Both revengers react to a surplus of energy, or what I will call the “excess of possibilities,” that threatens autonomy. Thus, the victims of revenge embody the excess of possibilities in the plays since they are reminders of the contingency, and potential indistinguishability, of the agents of revenge. Sacrificial cannibalism emerges as the revenger’s means for autonomous differentiation, thus eliminating the unbearable interchangeability generated by surplus. Furthermore, by theorizing the excess of possibilities as the underlying pressure driving Atreus as a Senecan revenge figure, I argue that the citation of a specifically Senecan cannibal banquet, appropriated in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, is a gesture by the author to sacrifice, and thus gratuitously consume, the surplus violence generated by the act of representation itself.Item Moral Economy and the Politics of Food Riots in Coriolanus(英語學系, 2010-09-??) Elyssa Y. ChengFood riots in the Elizabethan-Jacobean period were an explosive expression of discontent over the threat of food scarcity and starvation. They were ritualisticacts used by the commoners to compel the authorities to meet the standards of moral economy and to respect the plebeians' legitimate right to eat. In Coriolanus, Shakespeare highlights contemporary Jacobean food riots by rewriting and transferring the belly fable incident of usury riots into food riots and by repetitively referring to famine, hunger, and food hoarding in the riot scenes. Like Shakespeare's contemporary food rioters, the mobs in Coriolanus do not rise up to subvert the established social order; they revolt in order to alert the authorities that their grievances must be heard and respected. By portraying the crowd as exceptionally well-organized, the playwright transforms the play into a social critique to encourage his audience to think about the potential danger of popular disruptions and to urge the authorities to contemplate the consequences of ignoring the popular voice. Through this critique, the dramatist also manages to display how hunger can turn into a formidably collective power that poses a serious threat to the ruling authorities.Item The Crime Scene of Revenge Tragedy(英語學系, 2012-03-??) Carol Mejia LaPerleAnalyzing the parallel gestures of ritualistic brutality deployed in the cannibal banquet of Seneca’s Thyestes and Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, I reveal how the genre of revenge tragedies is simultaneously an instance of, and challenge to, Georges Bataille’s socio-economic theory of excess within a general economy. Excess, and not scarcity, is the motive and the condition for revenge. Both revengers react to a surplus of energy, or what I will call the “excess of possibilities,” that threatens autonomy. Thus, the victims of revenge embody the excess of possibilities in the plays since they are reminders of the contingency, and potential indistinguishability, of the agents of revenge. Sacrificial cannibalism emerges as the revenger’s means for autonomous differentiation, thus eliminating the unbearable interchangeability generated by surplus. Furthermore, by theorizing the excess of possibilities as the underlying pressure driving Atreus as a Senecan revenge figure, I argue that the citation of a specifically Senecan cannibal banquet, appropriated in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, is a gesture by the author to sacrifice, and thus gratuitously consume, the surplus violence generated by the act of representation itself.