The Revenger’s Tragedy: The State of Play. Ed. Gretchen E. Minton (The Arden Shakespeare State of Play Series). London: Bloomsbury, 2018.

• Anne-Julia Zwierlein

This meticulously edited collection re-examines the fascinating universe of The Revenger’s Tragedy; following scholarly consensus, authorship is attributed to Thomas Middleton. Divided into three sections – “Religion and Genre,” “History and Topicality,” “Performance” – the volume succeeds marvellously in elucidating the “outlandish” features of the play, responding to the ‘religious turn’ in cultural studies by assigning priority, in Part 1, to the links between theology and the constraints/possibilities of the play’s genre(s). Kelly in the opening chapter is masterful on how the play derives deliberate ambiguity from its interweaving of revenge play conventions with the medieval morality tradition: while the latter would have Vindice – as the allegorical Vice character – live on at the end of the play, revenge tragedies demand that the revenger die after his task is completed. Kelly shows how, by withholding both types of closure in its complex ending, this metatheatrical play questions many religious, moral and social assumptions of its time.