Alexandre Dumas pere's La Tour de Nesle (1832): tragedy or melodrama?

In the context of recent scholarly controversies over the distinction between tragedy and melodrama and the status of tragedy in Romantic-era literature, this essay contends that Alexandre Dumas's La Tour de Nesle (1832) deserves to be read as a tragedy. In an analysis of the tale of parricide, adultery, and infanticide at the center of this play, I show that, whatever the trappings, the plot and philosophy of La Tour exploits topoi familiar to readers of Classical, neoclassical, and Shakespearean tragedy and draws on concepts from the Judaeo-Christian Bible.