Isabelle

Nicolas de Montreux (1561?-1608?), little known today, was a prolific and widely diffused author in a wide range of genres, including drama. Evidence exists that Isabelle was the earliest of his three surviving tragedies, in print by 1584, although extant copies derive from the version annexed to a volume of his popular “bergeries” published in 1595. The question of date is particularly to the point, given the possibility, cautiously explored in this volume’s Introduction, that the play may have contributed to the formation and evolution of Shakespeare’s work at an early stage.

Beyond question is Isabelle’s participation in the vogue for Italianate romance literature that strongly influenced Elizabethan writing generally. Exceptionally for a French “humanist” tragedy of the period, its plot and main characters are adapted from an episode in Ariosto’s enormously popular epic Orlando Furioso featuring a confrontation between