Following the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign in the early seventeenth century, the new court of King James was beset by political instability and moral corruption. This atmosphere provided fertile ground for the dramatists of the age, whose plays explore the ways in which social decadence and the abuse of power breed resentment and lead inexorably to violence and bloody retribution. In Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy, the debauched son of an Italian Duke attempts to rape the virtuous Gloriana - a veiled reference to Elizabeth I. Webster's The White Devil depicts a sinister world of intrigue and murderous infidelity, while The Changeling, perhaps Middleton's supreme achievement, powerfully portrays a woman bringing about her own unwitting destruction. All three are masterpieces of brooding intensity, dominated by images of decay, disillusionment and death.

The Changeling is a popular Renaissance tragedy in which the relationship between money, sex, and power is explored. Frequently performed and studied in University courses, it is a key text in the New Mermaids series.

As the Elizabethan era gave way to the reign of James I, England grappled with corruption within the royal court and widespread religious anxiety. Dramatists responded with morally complex plays of dark wit and violent spectacle, exploring the nature of death, the abuse of power and vigilante justice. In Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy a father failed by the Spanish court seeks his own bloody retribution for his son's murder. Shakespeare's 1603 version of Hamlet creates an avenging Prince of unique psychological depth, while Chettle's The Tragedy of Hoffman is a fascinating reworking of Hamlet's themes, probably for a rival theatre company. In Marston's Antonio's Revenge, thwarted love leads inexorably to gory reprisals and in Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy, malcontent Vindice unleashes an escalating orgy of mayhem on a debauched Duke for his bride's murder, in a ferocious satire reflecting the mounting disillusionment of the age. Emma Smith's introduction considers the political and religious climate behind the plays and the dramatic conventions within them. This edition includes a chronology, playwrights' biographies and suggestions for further reading.

We who live among tired and demystified political institutions are afraid that individuals unrestrained by the influence of the community may resort to crime and violence. Yet in an Attic vengeance play, a treacherous "criminal" triumphs over a victim. How could the city of Athens show its citizens Medea's murder of her children? Orestes' killing of his mother? Anne Burnett reveals a larger reality in these ancient plays, comparing them to later drama and finding in them forgotten and powerful meaning.

Francis Bacon described revenge as a 'kind of wild justice'. Then as now, early modern playwrights and their theatre-going public were fascinated by the anarchic energies that a desire for retribution unleashes. Rather than rehearsing familiar conventions, each of these plays presents a unique social and cultural milieu where dark fantasies of revenge are variously played out. In Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy a grieving father seeks public justice for the murder of his son by envious princelings. When his attempts are thwarted he turns a court spectacle of murder into the 'real' thing. Blackly comic in its tone and style, The Revenger's Tragedy (anon.) presents vengeance as mimetic art, witty and cruel. Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore represents an innovative re-working of the genre as a brother's love for his sister leads to his spectacular revenge on his rival, her husband, in a society in which brutal retaliation for perceived wrong is the norm. In Webster's The White Devil crimes of passion ignite revenge in the courts of the Italian city states. This student edition contains fully annotated, modernized texts of each play together with an introduction discussing the dramatic and poetic style of each play, focusing on its action and play of ideas.

An illuminating account of how Shakespeare worked through the tensions of Queen Elizabeth's England in two canon-defining plays Conspiracies and revolts simmered beneath the surface of Queen Elizabeth's reign. England was riven with tensions created by religious conflict and the prospect of dynastic crisis and regime change. In this rich, incisive account, Peter Lake reveals how in Titus Andronicus and Hamlet Shakespeare worked through a range of Tudor anxieties, including concerns about the nature of justice, resistance, and salvation. In both Hamlet and Titus the princes are faced with successions forged under questionable circumstances and they each have a choice: whether or not to resort to political violence. The unfolding action, Lake argues, is best understood in terms of contemporary debates about the legitimacy of resistance and the relation between religion and politics. Relating the plays to their broader political and polemical contexts, Lake sheds light on the nature of revenge, resistance, and religion in post-Reformation England.