SOURCE: Ide, Richard S. “Bussy D'Ambois and the Quest for Virtue.” In Possessed with Greatness: The Heroic Tragedies of Chapman and Shakespeare, pp. 75-101. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1980.

In the essay below, Ide discusses Bussy as a complex tragic hero who—through his quest for virtue—reestablishes heroic idealism in a society degraded by pessimism and moral corruption.

The term “heroic tragedy” seems especially appropriate to Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois, for it reflects accurately both the moral ambiguity of the soldier-hero's behavior and the nature of his tragic conflict with society. Bussy's attempt to unmetaphor an epic conception of self leads to astonishing yet morally reprehensible actions that are incompatible with society's standards of acceptable behavior. Although Chapman's heroic tragedy is set in France in the 1570s and purports to be a historical biography, Bussy's conflict with society appears to be influenced by Essex's tragedy...