The genres of Renaissance tragedy

Daniel Cadman, Andrew Duxfield, Lisa Hopkins

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781526138279
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Medieval & Early Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This collection of newly commissioned essays explores the extraordinary versatility of Renaissance tragedy and shows how it enables exploration of issues ranging from gender to race to religious conflict, as well as providing us with some of the earliest dramatic representations of the lives of ordinary Englishmen and women. The book mixes perspectives from emerging scholars with those of established ones and offers the first systematic examination of the full range and versatility of Renaissance tragedy as a literary genre. It works by case study, so that each chapter offers not only a definition of a particular kind of Renaissance tragedy but also new research into a particularly noteworthy or influential example of that genre. Collectively the essays examine the work of a range of dramatists and offer a critical overview of Renaissance tragedy as a genre.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• 1 De casibus tragedy: Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great
• 2 Biblical tragedy: George Peele’s David and Bethsabe
• 3 Closet tragedy: Fulke Greville’s Mustapha
• 4 Tragedy of state: Macbeth
• 5 Domestic tragedy: Yarington(?)’s Two Lamentable Tragedies
• 6 Roman tragedy: the case of Jonson’s Sejanus
• 7 Satiric tragedy: The Revenger’s Tragedy
• 8 Revenge tragedy: Henry Chettle’s The Tragedy of Hoffman
• 9 ‘Ha, O my horror!’ Grotesque tragedy in John Webster’s The White Devil1
• 10 She-tragedy: lust, luxury and empire in John Fletcher and Philip Massinger’s The False One
• 11 Ford’s Perkin Warbeck as historical tragedy
• 12 Caroline tragedy: James Shirley’s The Traitor
• Selected bibliography
• Index