SOURCE: “Theodicy, Tragedy, and the Psalmist: Tourneur's The Atheist's Tragedy,” in Drama in the Renaissance: Comparative and Critical Essays, edited by Clifford Davidson, C. J. Gianakaris and John H. Stroupe, AMS Press, 1986, pp. 192-215.

In the following excerpt, Kaufmann sees The Atheist's Tragedy, like many Jacobean tragedies, as being both subversive and orthodox, as it dramatizes the point of tension in the ethical system it explores. He argues too that the work is a theological play, a dramatization of the 127th Psalm, and a critique of the notion that humans, and not God, are in control of their fate and in a position to mete out justice in the world.

Evil and good stand thick around In the fields of charity and sin Where we shall lead our harvests in. 

Edwin Muir

What can be said Except that suffering is exact, but where Desire takes charge, readings will...