Crime and God's Judgment in Shakespeare - Paperback

by Robert Rentoul Reed (Author)

Divine retribution, Robert Reed argues, is a principal driving force in Shakespeare's English history plays and three of his major tragedies. Reed finds evidence of the playwright's growing ingenuity and maturing skill in his treatment of the crime of political homicide, its impact on events, and God's judgment on the criminal. Reed's analysis focuses upon Tudor concepts that he shows were familiar to all Elizabethans-the biblical principle of inherited guilt, the doctrine that God is the fount

Author Biography

Robert Rentoul Reed Jr., is the author of Bedlam on the Jacobean Stage, The Occult on the Tudor and Stuart Stage, and Richard II: From Mask to Prophet. He is professor of English, emeritus, at Pennsylvania State University.