Bill Kerwin's Reviews > The Renegado

This entertaining late Jacobean play holds a special interest for the post 9/11 reader, broadly because of the clash between Islamic civilization and Christian culture, but more precisely because of the play's exploration of the theme of the renegade: what does it mean to renounce your religion and--perhaps of greater concern for Massinger--to deny your very self, with all the representations and assumptions that come with that denial?

In addition to the secondary character "the Renegado" (Grimaldi, a pirate converted to Islam), the play features as hero and heroine the Venetian gentleman Vitelli and Donusa, the Turkish princess who loves him. At some time in the play, each of these three characters is called upon to convert, and since each of them is a proud, imperious Massinger egoist, the question of what they will do becomes even more interesting.

Also noteworthy about The Renegado is its sympathetic portrayal of the Jesuit Francisco. Given the English Renaissance stereotype of the false "equivocating" Jesuit, this positive portrait by Massinger is seen by some critics as evidence that he was a professing Catholic, or at the least a Protestant not unsympathetic to Rome.(Or--perhaps--could Massinger himself have been a "renegado"?)