SOURCE: Ide, Richard S. “Exploiting the Tradition: The Elizabethan Revenger as Chapman's ‘Complete Man.’” In Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England: An Annual Gathering of Research, Criticism, and Reviews 1, edited by J. Leeds Barroll III, pp. 159-72. New York: AMS Press, 1984.

In the essay below, Ide argues that Chapman's purpose in writing The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois was to renovate the conventional depiction of the Elizabethan revenge play with his own “neoplatonic esthetic” about how the genre should be represented.

Criticism of Chapman's The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois has recently completed a remarkable turnabout. Formerly, critics were wont to view The Revenge as a heroic tragedy in which an exemplary hero—whether Bowers's “English gentleman,” Wieler's “Stoical man,” or Rees's “Christian Stoic”—is victimized by fallen men in a corrupt world.¹ With the luminous portrayal of Clermont D'Ambois set against the degenerate French court, Chapman is able to promote...