English Renaissance Tragedy Ideas of Freedom

This book's underlying claim is that English Renaissance tragedy addresses live issues in the experience of readers and spectators today: it is not a genre to be studied only for aesthetic or “heritage” reasons. The book considers the way in which tragedy in general, and English Renaissance tragedy in particular, addresses ideas of freedom, understood both from an individual and a sociopolitical perspective. Tragedy since the Greeks has addressed the constraints and necessities to which human life is subject (Fate, the gods, chance, the conflict between state and individual) as well as the human desire for autonomy and self-direction. In short, English Renaissance Tragedy: Ideas of Freedom shows how the tragic drama of Shakespeare's age addresses problems of freedom, slavery, and tyranny in ways that speak to us now.

Peter Holbrook is Professor of Shakespeare and English Renaissance Literature, University of
Queensland, Australia and President of the International Shakespeare Association.

Part One: Contexts and Criticism:
1. Key theories;
2. The Rise of tragic drama in Renaissance England: Key contexts;
3. Key Themes: Freedom, tyranny, and slavery;

Part Two: Reading the Plays:
Gorboduc;
Tamburlaine the Great, Parts I and II;
The Spanish Tragedy;
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus;
The Jew of Malta;
Edward II ;
Arden of Faversham;
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark;
A Woman Killed With Kindness;
Othello, the Moor of Venice;
King Lear;
Antony and Cleopatra;
The Revenger’s Tragedy;
The White Devil;
The Tragedy of Mariam: The Fair Queen of Jewry;
The Duchess of Malfi;
The Changeling;
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore

Annotated Further Reading;
Notes;
Index