The Revenger's Tragedy (New Mermaids) - Softcover

3.62

3,060 ratings by Goodreads

9780713666649: The Revenger's Tragedy (New Mermaids)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0713666641 ISBN 13: 9780713666649

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2002

The Revenger's Tragedy (1607) shows a brilliant court culture against a
sombre background; although fashionably Italianate in appearance, the
play is concerned with substantial issues in the Britain of King James
I. The new king's court became notorious for luxuriousness, spectacular
masques and torchlight revels; and poets and playwrights attacked the
rumoured sexual and political corruption in high places. By 1607
revenge tragedy had already developed as a hybrid form incorporating
complex intrigue plots and elements of farce, including, as here,
elements of horror. The hero Vindice is eloquent and engagingly witty;
but as a poet he sees the skull beneath the skin, and as a revenger he
carries out some of the cruellest killings in all English Renaissance
tragedy. As the introduction demonstrates, the play proves highly
successful in present-day performance, both professional and amateur,
and in a variety of period settings.

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About the Author:

The Editor, Brian Gibbons has been a General Editor of The New Mermaids since 1974 and also a General Editor of The New Cambridge Shakespeare since its inception. He is the author of many articles about English Drama, of two books, Jacobean City Comedy and Shakespeare and Multiplicity, and editor of editions in The New Mermaids as well as The Arden Shakespeare and The New Cambridge Shakespeare

Review:

"How well our barbarous and sex-crazed times relate to the horrors and refined cruelties of Thomas Middleton's extraordinary Jacobean masterpiece...A drama that makes grim, poetic fun of lust-filled aristocrats and lesser folk up to plenty of bad, some of them steaming hot for sex, adultery, murder and revenge." Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard, 05.06.08 "There's a sardonic and even sadistic glee in his poetry and...a lot of dark, dangerous laughter to be found in the play." Benedict Nightingale, The Times, 06.06.08 "Middleton certainly had a sardonic eye for twisted and compromised morals...His poetry is a vibrant mix of the ornate and the blunt. His so-called tragedy boldly veers into morbid farce, sparking explosive laughter." Kate Bassett, Independent on Sunday, 08.06.08 "The Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedies had more nasty killings and a higher body count than almost anything written by today's young pretenders, as well as a similarly steamy interest in perverse sex, too." Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 06.06.08 "[Middleton] is black-blooded, foul-mouthed, casual, uncaring - a pioneer of our common tongue, Ossuary English." Ian Shuttleworth, Financial Times, 10.06.08

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