Concerning itself with the complex interplay between iconoclasm against images of the Virgin Mary in post-Reformation England and stage representations that evoke various 'Marian moments' from the medieval, Catholic past, this collection answers the call for further investigation the complex relationship between the fraught religio-political culture of the period and the theater that it spawned. Contributors analyze the vestiges of Catholic tradition and culture that leak out in stage imagery, plot devices, and characterization.

Introduction, Regina Buccola, Lisa Hopkins; Chapter 1 'Here in this garden': The Iconography of the Virgin Queen in Shakespeare's Richard II, Helen Ostovich; Chapter 2 'One that's dead is quick': Virgin re-birth in All's Well That Ends Well, Alison Findlay; Chapter 3 Inverting the Pietà in Shakespeare's King Lear, Katharine Goodland; Chapter 4 'Black but Beautiful': Othello and the Cult of the Black Madonna, Lisa Hopkins; Chapter 5 Desdemona and the Mariological Theology of the Will in Othello, Greg Maillet; Chapter 6 The Wonder of Women: Virginity, Sexuality and Religio-Politics in Marston's The Tragedy of Sophonisba, Thomas Rist; Chapter 7 Easter Scenes from an Unholy Tomb: Christian Parody in The Widow's Tears, Alice Dailey; Chapter 8 Virgin Fairies and Imperial Whores: The Unstable Ground of Religious Iconography in Thomas Dekker's The Whore of Babylon, Regina Buccola; Chapter 9 Not kissing the (He)rod: Marian Moments in The Tragedy of Mariam, Stephanie Hodgson-Wright;