SOURCE: Lynskey, Edward C. “Fred Chappell's Castle Tzingal: Modern Revival of Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy.” Pembroke Magazine 25 (1993): 73-87.

In the following essay, Lynskey argues for a critical reassessment of Castle Tzingal, calling it “yet one more vivid example of the extraordinary depth and variance of Chappell's poetic vision.”

Fred Chappell's poetry collection Castle Tzingal (1984)—coyly derived from the Hungarian-derived word Tzigane for gypsy and Tintagel, court of the legendary Arthur and Camelot—represents a significant deviation from his poetic stock-in-trade. Critics in the past, though, have been too willing to dismiss and even overlook Castle Tzingal as only a distinctively minor work, describing it as a “toy” and “offbeat,” a versified curio resembling a Renaissance allegory, a poetic murder mystery, and a Tudor revenge play.¹ However, as the seminal work of a major American poet, Castle Tzingal merits our further attention and critical reassessment. In fact, the groundbreaking title...