Popular Culture Review Vol. 27, No. 1, Winter 2016 | Page 31

.] a crime against the  state”  (6). Modern interest in portrayals of revenge, that is, may well  be  born  of  concern  for  losing  one’s  personal ability to right matters of wrong as one is asked to cede powers to a not altogether trustworthy, but growing, central authority. Bowers  sums  that,  in  such  times,  some  “individuals continued to value their own privileges  far  more  than  the  common  weal”  (6). Even in the face of religious demands for social and spiritual order,  Bowers  writes,  “it  would  be  grave  error  to  neglect  the   stubborn, though not always ar X