Figures

Abstract

How do we see the figures of baroque drama? This chapter challenges common moral and historical interpretations of the revenge play by showing how judgement itself is forestalled by prior difficulties of discernment and recognition. Such difficulties are produced by these plays because early modern playwrights had begun for the first time to link tragic form to problems of figure and figuration, person and personation. From this interest arose serious artistic investigations of dramatic materials, achieved via extended manipulation of revenge tragedy’s corpses, ghosts, and uncertain substances. Exploring these from a variety of angles, this chapter concludes that both moralist and historicist accounts of early modern tragedy have conspired in the neglect of its most inventive claims upon our attention.