SOURCE: Demers, Patricia. “Chapman's The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois: Fixity and the Absolute Man.” Renaissance and Reformation 12, no. 1 (1976): 12-20.

In the essay below, Demers contends that Clermont in The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois represents a Stoic absolutism in the midst of the corrupt and chaotic French court, elevating Chapman's play from a mere revenge tragedy to a kind of morality play.

In all successes Fortune and the day To me alike are; I am fix'd, be she Never so fickle; …(1) 

In a world where man is insignificant “unless he be a politician” (I. ii. 141), Clermont D'Ambois, the most reluctant and unlikely of avengers, devotes himself quite assiduously to being “no politician” and “no lawyer” (IV. i. 48, 57). However, his significance is not to be doubted. He does not suffer for being no “great and politicke man … [who] Never explores himself to find his faults.”² Moreover, he offers no pale...