English Renaissance Tragedy

This book provides a broad introductory perspective on its subject together with detailed studies of the major non-Shakespearean tragedies. It assumes that the central and most disturbing insights of the plays were expressed in terms of the thought patterns of the time; in particular, it argues that the pre-modern conception of the cosmos as a dynamic but tense system of contrary forces provided the dramatists with a model of tragic experience. An unusual feature of the book is its emphasis on the seminal achievements of both Kyd and Marlow - with whom the tragedy of "confounding contraries" begins.