As the Elizabethan era gave way to the reign of James I, England grappled with corruption within the royal court and widespread religious anxiety. Dramatists responded with morally complex plays of dark wit and violent spectacle, exploring the nature of death, the abuse of power and vigilante justice. In Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy a father failed by the Spanish court seeks his own bloody retribution for his son's murder. Shakespeare's 1603 version of Hamlet creates an avenging Prince of unique psychological depth, while Chettle's The Tragedy of Hoffman is a fascinating reworking of Hamlet's themes, probably for a rival theatre company. In Marston's Antonio's Revenge, thwarted love leads inexorably to gory reprisals and in Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy, malcontent Vindice unleashes an escalating orgy of mayhem on a debauched Duke for his bride's murder, in a ferocious satire reflecting the mounting disillusionment of the age. Emma Smith's introduction considers the political and religious climate behind the plays and the dramatic conventions within them. This edition includes a chronology, playwrights' biographies and suggestions for further reading.

Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) was one of the most prolific and fascinating playwrights of the Jacobean era, producing nearly fifty theatrical pieces in a quarter of a century. This collection comprises five of his most powerful plays, from the comedies satirizing city life, A Trick to Catch the Old One, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, to his later tragedies Women Beware Women and The Changeling, in which Middleton reveals a world dominated by the corrupting power of lust and subject to the futility of human pretensions. Also included is The Revenger's Tragedy, originally ascribed to Cyril Tourneur, a Revenge Play infused with sardonic wit and biting irony.

Following the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign in the early seventeenth century, the new court of King James was beset by political instability and moral corruption. This atmosphere provided fertile ground for the dramatists of the age, whose plays explore the ways in which social decadence and the abuse of power breed resentment and lead inexorably to violence and bloody retribution. In Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy, the debauched son of an Italian Duke attempts to rape the virtuous Gloriana - a veiled reference to Elizabeth I. Webster's The White Devil depicts a sinister world of intrigue and murderous infidelity, while The Changeling, perhaps Middleton's supreme achievement, powerfully portrays a woman bringing about her own unwitting destruction. All three are masterpieces of brooding intensity, dominated by images of decay, disillusionment and death.

The Changeling is a popular Renaissance tragedy in which the relationship between money, sex, and power is explored. Frequently performed and studied in University courses, it is a key text in the New Mermaids series.

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

"An intense and horrible view of life."--T. S. Eliot "This drama must now be acknowledged, for dramtic power, for coherence of structure, for astonishing compression and consistency of language, and for superb unity of tone, surpassed in the whole Elizabethan repertory by only the few greatest plays."--Lawrence J. Ross In the family of passions none is more patient than hate. This masterpiece of the Elizabethan stage, first published in 1607, is a study of debauchery, deep offense, and the high cost of revenge. It is often compared to Hamlet for its relentless tension and its lecherous royalty. Its protagonist, Vindice, is one of the most memorable characters in all of Renaissance theater, a murderer who will not let a single enemy remain alive.

Presenting the complete texts of eight of the world’s greatest plays, this important volume illuminates the changing concept of tragedy from Sophocles to O’Neill. Some of the world’s greatest dramas unfold on these pages. In the powerful and famous plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripedes, Oedipus makes his disastrous marriage, Prometheus struggles against Zeus to break his painful chains, and the Love Goddess, Aphrodite, takes her revenge on the Theban prince who slighted her. Shakespeare’s King Lear suffers at the hands of his two evil daughters. The great Scandinavian dramatists Ibsen and Strindberg fearlessly present stories of infidelity and social disease, while Desire under the Elms, Eugene O’Neill’s savage picture of primitive desires in modern New England, rounds out this excellent anthology. Including important essays by noteworthy critics and philosophers, this book is an ideal companion to the editors’ Eight Great Comedies. Featured Plays: Prometheus Unbound (Aeschylus) Oedipus the King (Sophocles) Hippolytus (Euripedes) King Lear (William Shakespeare) Ghosts (Henrik Ibsen) Miss Julie (August Strindberg) On Baile’s Strand (William Butler Yeats) Desire under the Elms (Eugene O’Neill) Also includes essays by Aristotle, Hume, Emerson, Tillyard, Richards, and Krutch.