Middleton beyond the Canon

The traditional vision of Middleton as a playwright depicted him as an author of city comedies and tragicomedies, who in his very last years suddenly approached the tragic genre. Among his last four plays, three composed in succession are tragedies: Hengist, 1620, Women Beware Women. 1621 and The Changeling, 1622; the last two are recognized as masterpieces. In the last forty years, Middleton’s canon has changed with new attributions. This paper analyses the new pattern emerging in Middleton’s work with the insertion of the plays that have been attributed to him in the last few decades, remarking how tragedy is present throughout his career (A Yorkshire Tragedy in 1605, The Revenger’s Tragedy in 1606, The Bloody Banquet in 1609 and The Lady’s Tragedy in 1611). This sheds now light on his status as a playwright; in this paper, I try to analyse how the pattern of his female characters can be read with much richer insights considering the development of his tragic protagonists from 1605 to the end of his production