ABSTRACT
George Peele was only about forty when he died in 1596, leaving behind some very fine poems and a number of plays, for which he is best known. Peele is notable for having written in several genres: the pageant, the history play, and, in the case of David and Bethsabe, one of only a very few plays from late sixteenth-century England based on a biblical story. 1 The love story indicated by the Bible is only the first part of the play’s narrative, and Peele’s focus quickly shifts to Ammon’s rape of his sister Thamar and then to Absolon’s killing of Ammon and his rebellion against his father. The play has often been condemned as episodic and incoherent, but some critics have argued that the play does possess thematic consistency. As far as I know, the first critic to make this point was Inga-Stina Ewbank, who argued that the ‘connection between David’s sins and the sexual disorders within his House, as well as civil strife within his realm, was [Peele’s] organizing principle.’ 2 Ewbank’s contention has been influential; for instance, in his book on incest in Renaissance literature, Bruce Thomas Boehrer argues that David’s adultery initiates a process in which his ‘sons acquire their father’s depravity almost by moral osmosis; thus they finally expiate the father’s crime by proxy.’ 3
