Martyrs and players in early modern England: tragedy, religion and violence on stage

Focusing on Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Webster and John Milton, this book argues that the English tragedians reflected a response of the society 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.