SOURCE: “Cyril Tourneur on Revenge,” in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. XLVIII, No. 1, January, 1949, pp. 72-87.

In the following essay, Adams argues that in The Revenger's Tragedy and The Atheist's Tragedy Tourneur uses a common approach to the problem of revenge, as both dramas study the ethics of revenge and finally embrace a Christian solution—that God ultimately wreaks vengeance on the wicked and rewards the virtuous.

Cyril Tourneur occupies a peculiar position in Jacobean drama. If the sole play to be laid to his credit is The Atheist's Tragedy, [A.T.] he is decidedly second rate. On the other hand, if we can restore to him The Revengers Tragædie, [R.T.] he takes his place as a peer of Middleton, Ford, Webster, Marston, and Massinger. The Revengers Tragædie was published in quarto in 1607 with no author indicated. It was ascribed to Tourneur...