" Six Renaissance Tragedies: A Review"

Deep South v.3 n.3 (Spring 1997)

Six Renaissance Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy, Doctor Faustus, The Revenger's Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, The Changeling, and Tis' Pity She's a Whore, ed. Professor Colin Gibson, (Basingstoke, London: Macmillan, in association with The English Department, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 1997)

"When the bad bleeds, then is the tragedy good" -- so stresses Vindice in Act Three of The Revenger's Tragedy, one of the six tragedies in Professor Colin Gibson's edition of plays which is published by Macmillan in collaboration with the English Department at the University of Otago. It is a book which well illustrates just how absorbing good tragedy can be. If that point has ever been in doubt, then the General Introduction, the introduction to each play, as well as the textual commentaries and annotations will go a considerable way toward rectifying that matter.

Designed for students of Renaissance drama and for "performance use," this edition provides much information about the historical background and theatre history. Particularly gratifying is the detail regarding the challenges and difficulties of staging the tragedies that Gibson provides in the General Introduction. He also includes contemporary insights such as John Melton's lively description of a 1620 performance of Doctor Faustus, resplendent with "shag-haired devils [who] ran roaring over the stage with squibs in their mouths" (xxvi).

Gibson notes that "a preoccupation with violence and excess ... among the most powerful, cultured and high-ranking members of society" (xi) forms the primary focus of each of these plays; a fascination with blood and lust is shared between dramatist and audience. He further explains that the Elizabethan and Jacobean tendency to set all but one of these dramas in either Italy or Spain was because contemporary audiences associated these settings with extreme passion, corruption or violence. Many seventeenth-century English theatre-goers were comfortable with the playwright's technique of distancing them through the use of a foreign setting from a less ordered society since it allowed them to safely judge the follies and weaknesses of human nature.

At the heart of most of these plays resides what Gibson refers to as symbols of "assault on the integrity of personality" -- "the deeper theme of these tragedies" (xix). In his introduction he explains the thematic links between the six plays -- The Spanish Tragedy, Doctor Faustus, The Revenger's Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, The Changeling, and Tis' Pity She's a Whore -- each one highly representative of the best of seventeenth-century tragedy. Students will find helpful Gibson's chronological ordering of the plays, enabling them to gain a sense of dramaturgical changes and developments. Also of great use are the extensive notes and glossary which accompany each play. Readers will appreciate the simple yet effective system of reference, which allows for convenient access to the deeper meanings of the texts. Furthermore Gibson provides a generous selection of further readings which will expand upon some of his already valuable insights.

Six Renaissance Tragedies is an excellent addition to the corpus of works devoted to the teaching and performance of Renaissance drama.