Suffering in Anglophone Literatures: (Reading Trauma and Memory)

Suffering in Anglophone Literatures engages with postclassical Trauma Studies and opens the traumatic envelope to embrace concepts such as toleration, mourning, nostalgia, vulnerability and existential Angst. The first section explores insomnia in Shakespeare, testimonial suffering in Richardson, nostalgia in Clare, work as a form of suffering in Tennyson and pleasurable suffering in Trollope. The second section deals with suffering as expressed in blues (by August Wilson), intergenerational healing (by Rosanna Deerchild), systemic pain in war fiction (from World War One to the Vietnam War), personal and historical nostalgia (by John Banville) and literary non-commitment to suffering (by Joyce, and Philip Kerr). The final section turns to more recent literary texts ranging from the poetry of Derek Mahon, Philip Metres and Solmaz Sharif to novels on intergenerational trauma (by Kate Morton), the sexual abuse of women (by Miriam Toews) and growing up in poverty (by Douglas Stuart).

Table of Contents:
Introduction, Martina Domines and Charles I. Armstrong Part One: From the Early Modern Period to the Long Nineteenth Century – Human Suffering before the Birth of Trauma Chapter One: Sleeplessness and Suffering in Shakespeare, Lisa Hopkins Chapter Two: Negotiations of Suffering in Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Tijana Matovic Chapter Three: John Clare's Poetics of Suffering: Autobiographical Writings as the Embodiment of Romantic Nostalgia, Martina Domines Chapter Four: Work as Toil in Tennyson's “The Lotos-Eaters”, Borislav Kneževic Chapter Five: The 'Pleasurable Suffering' of Tolerance in Anthony Trollope's He Knew He Was Right, Nina Engelhardt Part Two: Twentieth Century Literary Landscapes of Suffering Chapter Six: “Iron Nails Ran In”: Modernism, Suffering and Humour in James Joyce's Ulysses, Dominik Wallerius Chapter Seven: Dark Material and Radical Healing in August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Jovana Pavicevic Chapter Eight: Dealing with Suffering, Engaging with the Past: Problematic Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Philip Kerr's A Quiet Flame, Christine Berberich Chapter Nine: “Our struggling bodies”: Writing Pain and Subjection in 20th Century U.S. War Writing, Julien Brugeron Chapter Ten: “Destruam et ædificabo”: Personal and Historical Suffering within the Nostalgic Redemptive Narrative in John Banville's The Untouchable, Jennifer Cowe Part Three: Twenty-first Century Kaleidoscopes of Trauma Chapter Eleven: Derek Mahon's Biography, Poetry, and Trauma, Charles I. Armstrong Chapter Twelve: “A Longing for Something Other”, Aging Female Selves Suffering, Writing and Historicizing Trauma in Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden, Marta Miquel-Baldellou Chapter Thirteen: Building an Archive of Suffering in Philip Metres' Sand Opera and Solmaz Sharif's Look, Henrik Torjusen Chapter Fourteen: “We are all victims”? Rethinking Vulnerability and Victimization in Literary Representations of Women's Suffering in Miriam Toews' Women Talking, Miriam Wallraven and Ksenija Kondali Chapter Fifteen: “A Crack in Her/Bone Memory”: Recovering the Mother's Story in Rosanna Deerchild's Calling Down the Sky, Cristina Stanciu Chapter Sixteen: Suffering and Trauma: Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain as a Return to Realism, Zekiye Antakyalioglu About the Contributors

About the Author :
Martina Domines is associate professor in the English Department at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. Charles I. Armstrong is professor of English literature at the University of Agder, Norway.