- Teacher: Devani Mandira Singh
The early modern period is the great age of English tragedy. Shakespeare's tragedies are famous ' and often studied at BA level in our department ' but the tragedies of his contemporaries, though no less exciting, are comparatively little known. In this seminar, we will closely investigate four English tragedies of outstanding interest covering a period of almost half a century, Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (ca. 1587), John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (1612/13), Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy (ca. 1606), and John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (ca. 1631). Amongst the subjects we will be interested in are morality, metatheatricality, spectacle, and genre.
Course Books
John Ford, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, ed. Sonia Massai, Arden Early Modern Drama (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), ISBN 978-1904271505.
Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, eds. Clara Calvo and Jesús Tronch, Arden Early Modern Drama (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), ISBN 978-1904271604.
Thomas Middleton, The Revenger's Tragedy, ed. Gretchen E. Minton, Arden Early Modern Drama (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), ISBN 978-1472520456.
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, ed. Leah S. Marcus, Arden Early Modern Drama (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), ISBN 978-1904271512.