Complexities of Anger: Literary and Cultural Perspectives

Anger is not simply an affect; it is a complicated and complex emotion that is culturally constructed and at the same time constructive of cultural, political, ecological and even psychological change and awareness. Complexities of Anger examines anger in 20th- and 21st-century Anglophone literature, including texts by Charlotte Mew, D. H. Lawrence, Carol Ann Duffy, A. S. Byatt, Ali Smith, Simon Stephens, Dennis Kelley, Lawrence Osborne, Margaret Atwood and Bernadine Evaristo, arguing that anger can be a productive agent of correction, restoration and destruction. In reading various literary representations – in postcolonial, gendered and even posthumanist settings – the gathered essays show that anger can provoke and stimulate change between the author, the text, and its readers. This edited collection goes beyond the existing literature on anger in literary studies, showing that anger becomes a product of change in relational spheres, while the literary impact of represented anger becomes a productive force within the text’s inner literary dynamics. Complexities of Anger also brings new perspectives by setting previous approaches in dialogue with the cultural, social, political and environmental problems the world faces today.