Radical Tragedy

When it was first published,Radical Tragedywas hailed as a groundbreaking reassessment of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. An engaged reading of the past with compelling contemporary significance,Radical Tragedyremains a landmark study of Renaissance drama. The third edition of this critically acclaimed work includes a new foreword by Terry Eagleton and an extensive new introduction by the author.

Acknowledgements

ix

Foreword by Terry Eagleton

x

Introduction to the Third Edition

xiv

i September 1914

xiv

ii September 2001

xvi

iii September 1939

xix

iv Art and Humanism

xxii

v Humanism and Materialism

xxv

vi Returns

xxvi

vii Knowledge and Desire

xxx

Notes

xxxv

Bibliography

xxxvii

Introduction to the Second Edition

xli

PART I: RADICAL DRAMA: ITS CONTEXTS AND EMERGENCE

1 Contexts

3

(26)

i Literary Criticism: Order versus History

5

(4)

ii Ideology, Religion and Renaissance Scepticism

9

(8)

iii Ideology and the Decentring of Man

17

(2)

iv Secularism versus Nihilism

19

(3)

v Censorship

22

(3)

vi Inversion and Misrule

25

(4)

2 Emergence: Marston's Antonio Plays

(c. 1599-1601) and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida

(c. 1601-2)

29

(24)

i Discontinuous Identity (1)

30

(6)

ii Providence and Natural Law (1)

36

(4)

iii Discontinuous Identity (2)

40

(2)

iv Providence and Natural Law (2)

42

(2)

v Ideology and the Absolute

44

(3)

vi Social Contradiction and Discontinuous Identity

47

(2)

vii Renaissance Man versus Decentred Malcontent

49

PART II: STRUCTURE, MIMESIS, PROVIDENCE

3 Structure: From Resolution to Dislocation

53

(17)

i Bradley

53

(3)

ii Archer and Eliot

56

(3)

iii Coherence and Discontinuity

59

(4)

iv Brecht: A Different Reality

63

(7)

4 Renaissance Literary Theory: Two Concepts of Mimesis

70

(13)

i Poetry versus History

71

(2)

ii The Fictive and the Real

73

(10)

5 The Disintegration of Providentialist Belief

83

(26)

i Atheism and Religious Scepticism

83

(4)

ii Providentialism and History

87

(3)

iii Organic Providence

90

(2)

iv From Mutability to Cosmic Decay

92

(7)

v Goodman and Elemental Chaos

99

(4)

vi Providence and Protestantism

103

(4)

vii Providence, Decay and the Drama

107

(2)

6 Dr Faustus (c. 1589-92): Subversion Through Transgression

109

(11)

i Limit and Transgression

110

(6)

ii Power and the Unitary Soul

116

(4)

7 Mustapha (c. 1594-6): Ruined Aesthetic, Ruined Theology

120

(14)

i Tragedy, Theology and Cosmic Decay

120

(3)

ii Mustapha: Tragedy as Dislocation

123

(11)

8 Sejanus (1603): History and Realpolitik

134

(5)

i History, Fate, Providence

134

(5)

9 The Revenger's Tragedy (c. 1606): Providence, Parody and Black Camp

139

(14)

i Providence and Parody

139

(4)

ii Desire and Death

143

(10)

PART III: MAN DECENTRED

10 Subjectivity and Social Process

153

(29)

i Tragedy, Humanism and the Transcendent Subject

156

(2)

ii The Jacobean Displacement of the Subject

158

(3)

iii The Essentialist Tradition: Christianity, Stoicism and Renaissance Humanism

161

(2)

iv Internal Tensions

163

(6)

v Anti-Essentialism in Political Theory and Renaissance Scepticism

169

(5)

vi Renaissance Individualism?

174

(8)

11 Bussy DÁmhois (c. 1604): A Hero at Court

182

(7)

i Shadows and Substance

182

(3)

ii Court Power and Native Noblesse

185

(4)

12 King Lear (c. 1605-6) and Essentialist Humanism

189

(15)

i Redemption and Endurance: Two Sides of Essentialist Humanism

191

(4)

ii KingLear: A Materialist Reading

195

(7)

iii The Refusal of Closure

202

(2)

13 Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1607): Virtus under Erasure

204

(14)

i Virtus and History

206

(1)

ii Virtus and Realpolitik (1)

207

(6)

iii Honour and Policy

213

(2)

iv Sexuality and Power

215

(3)

14 Coriolanus (c. 1608): The Chariot Wheel and its Dust

218

(13)

i Virtus and Realpolitik (2)

218

(4)

ii Essentialism and Class War

222

(9)

15 The White Devil (1612): Transgression Without Virtue

231

(18)

i Religion and State Power

231

(1)

ii The Virtuous and the Vicious

232

(3)

iii Sexual and Social Exploitation

235

(4)

iv The Assertive Woman

239

(3)

v The Dispossessed Intellectual

242

(2)

vi Living Contradictions

244

(5)

PART IV: SUBJECTIVITY: IDEALISM VERSUS MATERIALISM

16 Beyond Essentialist Humanism

249

(23)

i Origins of the Transcendent Subject

250

(3)

ii Essence and Universal: Enlightenment Transitions

253

(3)

iii Discrimination and Subjectivity

256

(2)

iv Formative Literary Influences: Pope to Eliot

258

(4)

v Existentialism

262

(2)

vi Lawrence, Leavis and Individualism

264

(5)

vii The Decentred Subject

269

(3)

Notes

272

(18)

Bibliography of Work Cited

290

(17)

Index of Names and Texts

307

(4)

Index of Subjects

311

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