Manchester University Press David and Bathsheba: By George Peele (The Revels Plays)

This volume presents a modernised edition of one of only two surviving biblical dramas written for the early modern English professional stage; George Peele’s explosive biblical drama about the tangled lives, deadly liaisons, and twisted histories of Ancient Israel’s royal family, which begins with the onset of the affair between David and Bathsheba and proceeds to unravel the affair’s horrible personal and political consequences. Martin’s critical edition is the first modern single-volume edition of the play since W.W. Greg’s 1912 facsimile edition. Comprehensively introduced and containing full commentary notes, this edition opens up this unduly neglected but historically significant and dramatically powerful gem of English Renaissance drama to student and scholar alike. The introduction examines such topics as the play’s treatment of its biblical and poetic sources, its engagement with Elizabethan politics, and its forceful representations of religious fanaticism, genocide and sexual violence. Its collation notes record the text’s full collation with the surviving fourteen copies of the play’s 1599 edition and major modern editions. Its commentary notes clarify the meaning of the text and aspects of its staging, guide the reader through the play’s dramatisation of the turbulent Davidic period of Ancient Israel’s history, and place the play in its broader cultural and artistic milieu. An appendix contains original French and translations of excerpts from one of the play’s major sources, Du Bartas’s Semaines. This Revels edition aims to encourage new contemporary critical study of Peele’s powerful and disturbing drama.