This dissertation considers the literary treatment of revenge in medieval England and Iceland. Vengeance and feud were an essential part of these cultures; far from the reckless, impulsive action that the word conjures up in modern minds, revenge was considered both a right and a duty and was legislated and regulated by social norms. It was an important tool for obtaining justice and protecting property, family, and reputation. Accordingly, many medieval literary works seem to accept revenge without question. Many, however, evince a great sensitivity to the ambiguities and paradoxes inherent in an act of revenge. In my study, I consider three works that are emblematic of this responsiveness to and indeed, anxiety about revenge. Chapter one focuses on the Old English poem Beowulf; chapter two moves on to discuss Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale and Tale of Melibee from the Canterbury Tales; and chapter three examines the Old Icelandic family saga, Ljósvetninga saga. I focus in particular on the treatment of the avenger in each work. The poet or author of each work acknowledges the perspective of the avenger by allowing him to express his motivations, desires, and justifications for revenge in direct speech. Alongside this acknowledgement, however, is the author’s own reflection on the risks, rewards, and repercussions of the avenger’s intentions and actions. The resulting parallel but divergent narratives highlight the multiplicity of viewpoints found in any act of revenge or feud and reveal a fundamental ambivalence about the value, morality, and necessity of revenge. Each of the works I consider resists easy conclusions about revenge in its own context and remains incredibly current in the way it poses challenging questions about what constitutes injury, punishment, justice, and revenge in our own time.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 218-228). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This thesis examines Hamlet and Measure for Measure as related “problem plays.” In these plays, Shakespeare uniquely combines the genre of parable and the literary device of irony as a means to involve his audience in the experience of ordeal and deliverance that both reorients the protagonists’ personal, political, and ultimately theological assumptions and prompts spiritual insight in the spectator. As in a parable, a spiritual dimension opens subtly alongside each story to inform the play’s action and engage the spectator in the underlying theological discourse. Irony invites the audience to see the disparity between pretended or mistaken reality and the spiritual truth—between what “seems” and what “is.” As these complex dramatized parables unfold, potent tapestries of multilayered thematic irony coalesce into providential irony that exalts, rather than defeats, the protagonists and ultimately determines the outcome.

My purpose in this study is twofold. Firstly, I intend to examine the existence of honour in Greek society by an analysis of its presentation in works of Greek literature. In order to achieve this, I shall first examine the values of the Homeric, heroic society so that a picture of the code of honour that was used in those times, might be established. This code of honour provided the foundation upon which later honourable behaviour was based and from which it grew; it is, therefore, a necessary addition in a study such as this. Then, I shall proceed to a study of Euripides' Medea and Hippolytus, two plays that firmly incorporate the motif of honour and revenge. Secondly, I intend to examine a few examples of modern societies. The purpose of this is to ascertain whether any relationship between archaic, classical and contemporary cultures can be established. Shared values and beliefs will be examined in order to determine any possible similarities between cultures and societies that are chronologically separated by hundreds of years. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

Esta dissertação aborda o Direito Ático por um prisma axiológico. Admite a influência dos valores na formulação de normas e institutos, e destaca um valor que considera como dos mais importantes na cultura grega dos séculos V e IV a.C., a saber, a honra. Uma primeira parte do trabalho se propõe a delimitar a honra, distinguindo seu uso em dois sentidos principais de: valor que se tem, e de fenômeno da percepção deste valor. Uma segunda parte demonstra a origem do apreço pela honra e pela excelência na poesia épica, esclarecendo depois que posição a honra ocupa na escala grega de valores. Trata-se ainda da guerra como local para o nascimento e consolidação dos significados de honra de que dispomos, e em seguida, aborda a tormentosa situação enfrentada por Drácon por conta da prática da vingança privada, destacando a vinculação desta ao restabelecimento da honra e comentado as características da lei de homicídio de Drácon. A terceira parte dedica-se a detalhado exame de três institutos jurídicos Áticos que têm na honra sua razão de ser: perda dos direitos civis, atimía; serviços ao povo de Atenas, liturgias; a tratamento e punição da hýbris. / The present work examines Attic Law through an axiological perspective. Admits the role of values in forming norms and juridical institutes, focusing in a special value considered to be one of the main forms of excellence in 5th and 4th century: honor. The first part of the work delimits honor, indicating two meanings for the term: a value that the subject has, and the perception of such a value by others. A second part demonstrates the origin of the greek concern with honor and excellence in Homer´s epic poetry, establishing a post for honor in greek axiological rankings. Identifies war as the birthplace of the meanings of honor we discussed, and analyzes the difficult social condition that Draco had to face in its time, related to private revenge, emphasizing it connection with the theme of honor and commenting Draco´s Homicide Law. The third part brings a detailed exam of three of attic law´s institutes related to honor: disenfranchisement, atimía; public service in Athens, liturgies; treatment and punishment of hýbris.

Ses principaux lecteurs n’ont cessé de concevoir le Haut Livre du Graal comme un roman des confins de la barbarie. L’éclatement des cadres de l’écriture arthurienne est prégnant dans ses épisodes les plus emblématiques, qui révèlent un hiatus irréductible entre une « haute écriture » et l’exaltation de la matérialité des êtres. Le roman semble soumis à une double postulation vers le haut et le bas, vers les convulsions du monde sublunaire et une mystique aussi présente que ténue. L’étude des manifestations et senefiances de la mort s’applique à saisir l’écriture de cet entre-deux, tout en privilégiant l’approfondissement de deux traits majeurs : la dimension visuelle inhérente à la représentation de la mort et les procédés d’écriture propres à esquisser les linéaments d’une « écriture funèbre ». Le paradigme visuel relaie la puissance évocatoire des morts narrées, tandis que la dominante funeste du récit semble être l’un des gages les plus viables de l’unité d’une œuvre dont les structures narratives se dérobent. Le parcours herméneutique de cette étude considère tout d’abord le vocabulaire de la mort, avant d’aborder les circonstances de l’instant mortel, les deux versants spirituel et temporel de la mort, et le lien toujours puissant qui unit les vivants et les morts. Après des considérations à la fois stylistiques, rhétoriques, historiques et anthropologiques, la deuxième partie déplace vers le champ de la poétique du texte la problématique d’une mort fondamentalement ubiquitaire. / The main scholars always depicted the High Book of the Grail as a novel which borders on barbarism. The bursting of the frames of arthurian writing is significant in its most iconic episodes as well, which reveal a huge gap between "High Scripture" and a glorification of the materiality of beings. The novel seems based on a double postulation up and down, towards materiality and spirituality. The study of events and senefiances of death applies to grasp the writing of in-between, while emphasizing the study of two major elements: the inherent visual dimension to the representation of death and methods of its own writing which sketches the outlines of a "funeral writing." Visual paradigm relays the evocative power of the dead narrated while that fateful dominant narrative seems to be one of the most efficient guarantee of the unit of a work whose structure is relevent to illusion or arcana. The hermeneutic thought process of this study considers at first the vocabulary of death, before addressing the circumstances of the "instant mortel", the two spiritual and temporal sides of death, the always powerful unity of the living and the dead. After some stylistic considerations, as well as rhetorical, historical and anthropological ones, the last chapters move to the field of poetics, in a world where death appears fundamentally ubiquitous.

Revenge, the act of retaliating against a person or group in response to a perceived wrongdoing, appears to be a human universal. Those who research culture, revenge, and forgiveness have indicated cultural differences, but no clear patterns have emerged that could be useful in mediating conflicts. Thus, a meta-analysis was conducted of studies in which people from two different countries were compared on a measure of revenge or forgiveness. The countries represented were also coded based on Geert Hofstede's national culture dimensions, to test whether any specific cultural characteristics moderated desire for revenge. The final sample was made up of 16 studies, including data from 9416 participants across 16 countries. The largest cultural differences in revenge and forgiveness were observed between countries also showing the largest differences in Uncertainty Avoidance and Power Distance. Participants from countries higher in Uncertainty Avoidance and Power Distance were more likely to seek revenge and less likely to forgive, though the pattern was not statistically significant. These results indicate that, when working toward reconciliation, divergent strategies might be required for different countries and cultures based on the level of Uncertainty Avoidance and Power Distance that exist within those cultures.

The aim of the master thesis is to identify factors on which a motivation of individual, rather terrorist organization is based for committing of suicide attacks as a social phenomenon, that appears to be a priori incomprehensible in the context of European culture setting. The secondary aim of the thesis is to distinguish an eventual difference of motivation between female suicide attackers and male suicide attackers. For these purposes, two terrorist organizations have been analysed within two separately designed case studies, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Hamas for those the suicide attacks have represented the real "modus operandi" and simultaneously engaged women to their suicide missions. These terrorist organizations have been systematically analysed in terms of cultural, political, economic and organizational and social-psychological factors. The levels of analysis used, represent a synthetized reflection of existing theoretic treatment of suicide terrorism issue. The resulting findings confirm, first of all, the fact, that suicide terrorism phenomenon constitutes considerably complicated social phenomenon, whose central motive appears to be political, more precisely nationalistic. However its strength and effectiveness are largely interconnected with other motives, both cultural,...

L’objectif de cette étude est de déterminer comment la pensée et l’imaginaire de la colère se façonnent en France au XVIIe siècle à partir d’un corpus large de littérature morale, comprenant des traités de médecine, de théologie, de philosophie, de morale et de civilité. La colère compte alors parmi les passions et se définit, conformément à la proposition aristotélicienne, comme un désir de vengeance qui fait suite à une marque de mépris et qui se manifeste dans le corps par un bouillonnement de sang autour du cœur. Elle est également une des quatre humeurs du système médical hippocratico-galénique : la bile jaune (cholè) menace les colériques de fièvres et autres inflammations. Associée à une folie et à un vice chez Sénèque, l’Ire figure enfin dans le septenaire des péchés capitaux, aux côtés de l’Orgueil et de l’Envie. Mais l’anthropologie chrétienne lui reconnaît également de bons usages, et tout l’effort des moralistes, médecins et théologiens de l’époque moderne est de déterminer comment concilier la dimension naturelle et physiologique de la passion avec l’aspiration à la vertu dans l’usage du monde. Ces auteurs encouragent au gouvernement des passions, à la fois dans une démarche charitable, et afin de favoriser leur usage rhétorique dans la mise en scène de soi sur la scène mondaine. Notre étude contribue à l’histoire des émotions de l’époque moderne par l’analyse des discours qui ont forgé les représentations et l’imaginaire de la colère. En déployant le modèle topique de la colère à partir de la littérature morale, considérée comme une formation discursive composée des différents champs du savoir, elle participe à l’anthropologie historique de l’affectivité. / This study aims to determine how the representations of anger were built in France in the 17th century from a broad collection of moral literature, including treatises on medicine, theology, philosophy, morals and civility. Anger was counted among the passions and defined, according to the Aristotelian proposal, as a desire for revenge caused by a perception of contempt, which manifests itself in the body with blood boiling around the heart. Anger (colère) was then correlated with choler, which is one of the four humors of the Hippocratic and galenic medicine (cholè): yellow bile causes fever and other kinds of inflammation. Considered as a form of madness and a vice by Seneca, the Ire finally appeared in the septenary scheme of the deadly sins, alongside Pride and Envy. But Christian anthropology also acknowledged its good uses, and the whole effort of the moralists, doctors and theologians of the early modern period was to determine how to reconcile the natural and physiological dimension of passion with the aspiration to virtue for the use of world. These authors encouraged the government of passions, both in a charitable perspective, and to promote their rhetorical use for self-staging in society.Our study contributes to the history of emotions in early modern France by analyzing the discourses that built the representations and the imagination of anger. By deploying the topical model of anger from a collection of moral literature considered as a discursive formation composed of different fields of knowledge, it participates in developing the historical anthropology of affectivity.

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