Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-dbm8p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-03T20:32:47.223Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 2 - Punishing the Transgressive Will

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2025

Douglas Clark
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

This chapter shows that the faculty of the will was presented as a ubiquitously dangerous facet of selfhood in Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, when used to gratify selfish or sinful desires. ‘Punishing the Transgressive Will’ explains how this convention helped define how the limitations of human ambition and the boundaries of moral transgression were depicted. I do so primarily through a comparative analysis of the notorious acts of wilfulness performed in Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, Dr Faustus, and Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam. Enticing as it was dangerous, the capacity for the will to incite violence or disorder was commonly shown to be the primary cause of its own ruin. This literary topos is, however, importantly refuted in Cary’s play through the character of Salome. Among all of the excessively wilful characters who feature in Renaissance drama, Salome proves to be an exceptional type of Neo-Senecan villain whose will functions without limit: her will is not self-defeating, nor is she punished for exercising it. I propose that Salome’s fate can help to redefine our understanding of transgressive acts in Renaissance tragedies.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×