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Tragedy
How tragedy evolved beyond Shakespeare and why it still matters. Tragedy, as this study shows, is not a break from the past but a continuation and expansion, revealing how Elizabethan drama matured into a more conscious art. You’ll see why Shakespeare’s tragedies are described as the culmination of earlier forms, while contemporaries and successors pushed drama toward new textures of character, spectacle, and moral inquiry.
Two clear aims run through the to map shifts in form and to explain how audiences and critics helped shape the stage. The book traces the rise of the revenge play, the influence of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the work of key dramatists like Tourneur, Webster, Massinger, Middleton, Ford, and Shirley. It also shows how the shift from grand moral drama to ironic, often darker portrayals mirrored changing social tastes and political realities.
- Understand how the late Elizabethan and early Stuart stage balanced horror, intrigue, and character.
- See how revenge plots evolved from blood-for-blood drama to more complex, sometimes cynical portraits of vice.
- Learn how earlier poets and later playwrights influenced each other across generations.
- Discover how critical opinion and court life shaped what audiences came to expect from tragedy.
Ideal for readers of literary history and students of drama who want a concise map of how tragedy transformed across the late 16th to early 17th centuries, and why those changes mattered for later theatre.
Two clear aims run through the to map shifts in form and to explain how audiences and critics helped shape the stage. The book traces the rise of the revenge play, the influence of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the work of key dramatists like Tourneur, Webster, Massinger, Middleton, Ford, and Shirley. It also shows how the shift from grand moral drama to ironic, often darker portrayals mirrored changing social tastes and political realities.
- Understand how the late Elizabethan and early Stuart stage balanced horror, intrigue, and character.
- See how revenge plots evolved from blood-for-blood drama to more complex, sometimes cynical portraits of vice.
- Learn how earlier poets and later playwrights influenced each other across generations.
- Discover how critical opinion and court life shaped what audiences came to expect from tragedy.
Ideal for readers of literary history and students of drama who want a concise map of how tragedy transformed across the late 16th to early 17th centuries, and why those changes mattered for later theatre.
Kindle Edition
Published August 24, 2018
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