Aesthetics of Violence

Offering an ambitious study of the aesthetics of violence across art, literature, film and theatre, this volume brings together traditional German aesthetic and social theory with the modern problem of violence in art. Written in an engaging style, the book includes examples ranging from Homer and Shakespeare to slasher films and performance art.

Robert Appelbaum is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Uppsala University, Sweden. He is the author of Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge UP, 2002), Dishing It Out (Reaktion, 2011), Working the Aisles: A Life in Consumption (Zero, 2014) and Terrorism Before the Letter: the Mythography of Political Violence in England, Scotland and France (Oxford UP, 2015).

1. Playing with Violence / 2. Hansel or Gretel / 3. Winners and Losers / 4. Revelry / 5. Puzzle / Epilogue: Art Without Violence, Violence Without Art / Bibliography / Index