These twelve new essays show the variety and versatility of Renaissance tragedy and highlight the issues it explores. Each chapter defines a particular kind of Renaissance tragedy and offers new research on a particularly striking example. Collectively the essays offer a critical overview of Renaissance tragedy as a genre.

Table of Contents Introduction - Daniel Cadman, Andrew Duxfield and Lisa Hopkins 1. De Casibus tragedy: Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great - Andrew Duxfield2. Biblical tragedy: George Peele’s David and Bethsabe - Annaliese Connolly3. Closet tragedy: Fulke Greville’s Mustapha - Daniel Cadman4. Tragedy of state: Macbeth - Alisa Manninen5. Domestic Tragedy: Yarington(?)’s Two Lamentable Tragedies - Lisa Hopkins and Gemma Leggott6. Rome and tragic ambivalence: the case of Jonson’s Sejanus - John Curran7. Satiric tragedy: The Revenger’s Tragedy -Gabriel Rieger8. Revenge tragedy: Hoffman - Derek Dunne9. “Ha, O my horror!” grotesque tragedy in John Webster’s The White Devil - Paul Frazer10. She-Tragedy: lust, luxury and empire in John Fletcher and Philip Massinger’s The False One - Domenico Lovascio11. Ford’s Perkin Warbeck as historical tragedy - Sarah Dewar-WatsonCaroline tragedy: James Shirley’s The Traitor - Jessica DysonIndex

Tragedy is the most versatile of Renaissance literary genres. The pinnacle of tragic drama in the period, Hamlet, has become the most famous play, and indeed arguably the most famous work of literature of any genre, ever to have been written; tragedies dealing with historical figures such as Julius Caesar or Richard III have made definitive contributions to the general perception of those personages; and some tragedies contain moments of wild and weird wit or humour which make them funnier than many comedies of the period. Renaissance tragedy as a whole enables exploration of issues ranging from gender to race to religious conflict, and provides us with the first dramatic representations of the lives of ordinary Englishmen and women. This collection of newly commissioned essays 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. Each chapter employs a case study to offer 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 wide range of dramatists and offer a critical account of the extraordinary variety of material that falls into the broad category of Renaissance tragedy.