Cover; Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Tragedy and Religious Violence in Early Modern England; 1 Violence against the Sacred: Martyrdom and the Doctrine of the Persecuted Church; 2 The Tragedy of Gravity: William Shakespeare's King Lear; 3 Tragic Participation: John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi; 4 Tragic Complicity: Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus; 5 Tragic Ambivalence: John Milton's Samson Agonistes; Bibliography; Index
Summary
Focusing on Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Webster and John Milton, Martyrs and Players in Early Modern England argues that the English tragedians reflected an unease within the culture to acts of religious violence. David Anderson explores a link between the unstable emotional response of society to religious executions in the Tudor-Stuart period, and the revival of tragic drama as a major cultural form for the first time since classical antiquity
