One of the great Renaissance playwrights, Middleton wrote tragediesessentially different from either Marlowe's or Shakespeare's, beingwittier than the former and more grittily ironic than the latter. Thegenre of 'citizen tragedy' came into its own in the eighteenth century, but Middleton can claim to have created it: Bianca, wife of a middlingcommercial agent, arouses the lust of the Duke of Florence and becomeshis mistress, first secretly, then openly and finally, after herhusband has been seduced by the scheming Lady Livia and stabbed byLivia's brother, the Duke's wife. Livia plots her...