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).

Charles Ivan Armstrong is Professor of British Literature, University of Agder, Norway.

Christine Berberich is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Her previous publications include The Image of the English Gentleman in Twentieth Century Literature.

Jennifer Cowe is lecturer in the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at the University of British Columbia.

Martina Domines is associate professor in the English Department at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.