In the wake of Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary renditions, and secret torture centres in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, Revenge versus Legality addresses the relationship between law and wild or vigilante justice; between the power to enforce retribution and the desire to seek revenge. Taking up a variety of narratives from the eras of Romanticism, Realism, Modernism and the Contemporary period, and including new theories to explain the interactions that occur between legalistic courtroom justice and the vigilante variety, Revenge versus Legality analyzes some of the main obstacles to justice, ranging from judicial corruption, to racism and imperialism. The book culminates in a consideration of that form of crime or lawlessness that poses the most serious threat to the rule of law: vigilante justice masquerading as legality. With its mixture of politics, literature, law, and film, this lively and accessible book offers a timely reflection on the enduring phenomenon of revenge.

In the wake of Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary renditions, and secret torture centres in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, Revenge versus Legality addresses the relationship between law and wild or vigilante justice; between the power to enforce retribution and the desire to seek revenge. Taking up a variety of narratives from the eras of Romanticism, Realism, Modernism and the Contemporary period, and including new theories to explain the interactions that occur between legalistic courtroom justice and the vigilante variety, Revenge versus Legality analyzes some of the main obstacles to justice, ranging from judicial corruption, to racism and imperialism. The book culminates in a consideration of that form of crime or lawlessness that poses the most serious threat to the rule of law: vigilante justice masquerading as legality. With its mixture of politics, literature, law, and film, this lively and accessible book offers a timely reflection on the enduring phenomenon of revenge.

Reveries of Community reconsiders the role of epic poetry during the French Wars of Religion, the series of wars between Catholics and Protestants that dominated France between 1562 and 1598. Critics have often viewed French epic poetry as a casualty of these wars, arguing that the few epics France produced during this conflict failed in power and influence compared to those of France's neighbors, such as Italy's Orlando Furioso, England's Faerie Queene, and Portugal's Os Lusiadas. Katherine S. Maynard argues instead that the wars did not hinder epic poetry, but rather French poets responded to the crisis by using epic poetry to reimagine France's present and future. Traditionally united by une foi, une loi, un roi (one faith, one law, one king), France under Henri IV was cleaved into warring factions of Catholics and Huguenots. The country suffered episodes of bloodshed such as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, even as attempts were made to attenuate the violence through frequent edicts, including those of St. Germain (1570) and Nantes (1598). Maynard examines the rich and often dismissed body work written during these bloody decades: Pierre de Ronsard's Franciade, Guillaume Salluste Du Bartas's La Judit and La Sepmaine, Sebastian Garnier's La Henriade, Agrippa d'Aubigne's Les Tragiques, and others. She traces how French poets, taking classics such as Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad as their models, reimagined possibilities for French reconciliation and unity.