Tragical histories, tragical tales

Gibson, Jonathan (2009). Tragical histories, tragical tales. In: Pincombe, Mike and Shrank, Cathy eds. Oxford Handbook of Tudor Literature, 1485-1603. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 521–536.

URL: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199205882.d...

Abstract

In this chapter, I isolate for study the genre of the 'tragical tale', tracing its origins in Boccaccio, Ovid, Livy and Seneca and describing in detail the key influence on early Elizabethan examples of the genre of Bandello's novelle and of Bandello's French translators, Boiastuau and Belleforest. As well as unpicking the complex relationship between history, fiction and morality in the genre as a whole, I analyse in detail four English texts: William Painter's Palace of Pleasure (1566), Geoffrey Fenton's Certain Tragical Discourses (1567), Arthur Brooke's Romeus and Juliet (1562) and Bernard Garter's The Tragical and True History (1565). I also consider the later development of the genre, including its absorption into other genres of prose fiction and partial replacement with the providentialist crime pamphlet.

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• Item ORO ID
• 36877
• Item Type
• Book Section
• ISBN
• 0-19-920588-4, 978-0-19-920588-2
• Keywords
• Elizabethan literature; prose fiction; poetry; violence; morality; tragedy; Bernard Garter; Arthur Brooke; Geoffrey Fenton; William Painter; Matteo Bandello; Pierre Boiastuau; Francois Belleforest
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > Arts and Humanities > English & Creative Writing
  Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > Arts and Humanities
  Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)
• Copyright Holders
• © 2010 Oxford University Press
• Depositing User
• Jonathan Gibson