ABSTRACT
While The Massacre at Paris interrogates the transhistorical and transcendental assumptions which underpin the concept of the canon, The Jew of Malta considers another classificatory structure - genre. In The Massacre at Paris the structure examined by the play is one which affects not only how a text is classified, but also, and more importantly, how a text is received. The Jew of Malta considers the concept of genre which influences and informs a text both at the moment of its inception and again at the point of its reception. Introduced by the character Machevill, The Jew of Malta opens with a prologue which names the play's genre as tragedy. The impression of generic uncertainty manufactured by The Jew of Malta has, not surprisingly, been a source of considerable concern for twentieth-century critics of the play.
