Brian Gibbons

The Revenger's Tragedy (1607) shows a brilliant court culture against a sombre background; although fashionably Italianate in appearance, the play is concerned with substantial issues in the Britain of King James I. The new king's court became notorious for luxuriousness, spectacular masques and torchlight revels; and poets and playwrights attacked the rumoured sexual and political corruption in high places. By 1607 revenge tragedy had already developed as a hybrid form incorporating complex intrigue plots and elements of farce, including, as here, elements of horror. The hero Vindice is eloquent and engagingly witty; but as a poet he sees the skull beneath the skin, and as a revenger he carries out some of the cruellest killings in all English Renaissance tragedy. As the introduction demonstrates, the play proves highly successful in present-day performance, both professional and amateur, and in a variety of period settings.

The Revenger's Tragedy

John Webster

Hoffman Reynolds Hays

Brecht and Hays's adaptation of John Webster's 'The Duchess of Malfi' was born of a tortuous set of drafts, redrafts and recriminations, which led to several versions of the script, including a Broadway staging of a version by W.H. Auden. The idea was to eliminate the anticlimactic series of deaths at the end, tighten up the script and emphasize the implicit incest motivation of the Duke. This version of the script, written directly in English by Hays, with Brecht advising on story and structure, is complemented here by notes and letters by Brecht himself on how the play ought to be performed.

The Duchess of Malfi

Spirituality and the Occult argues against the widely held view that occult spiritualities are marginal to Western culture. Showing that the esoteric tradition is unfairly neglected in Western culture and that much of what we take to be 'modern' derives at least in part from this tradition, it casts a fresh, intriguing and persuasive perspective on intellectual and cultural history in the West. Brian Gibbons identifies the influence and continued presence of esoteric mystical movements in disciplines such as: * medicine * science * philosophy * Freudian and Jungian psychology * radical political movements * imaginative literature.

Brian Gibbons

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