Middleton, who wrote in a wide variety of genres and styles, was a thoroughly professional dramatist. His comedies are generally based on London life but are seen through the perspective of Roman comedy, especially those of Plautus. Middleton is a masterful constructor of plots. "A Chaste Maid in Cheapside" (1630) is typical of Middleton's interests. It is biting and satirical in tone: the crassness of the willing cuckold Allwit is almost frightening. Middleton was very preoccupied with sexual themes, especially in his tragedies, "The Changeling" (1622), written with William Rowley, and "Women Beware Women" (1621). The portraits of women in these plays are remarkable. Both Beatrice-Joanna… in "The Changeling" and Bianca in "Women Beware Women" move swiftly from innocence to corruption, and Livia in "Women Beware Women" is noteworthy as a feminine Machiavelli and manipulator. In his psychological realism and his powerful vision of evil, Middleton is close to Shakespeare.
Little is known about the life of Cyril Tourneur. In 1600 he published a verse satire, The Transformed Metamorphosis, and the two plays associated with his name---The Revenger's Tragedy (1607) and The Atheist's Tragedy (1611)---are both strongly satirical. The Revenger's Tragedy is a masterpiece of tragic farce and black comedy, with an impassioned contempt-of-the-world rhetoric. Its authorship has been questioned, with Thomas Middleton the leading candidate. The Atheist's Tragedy directly engages the theological theme of atheism; it is both grotesque and homiletic in its proof of the existence of God.
Webster seems to have participated in many dramatic collaborations, but his undisputed work consists of only three plays: The White Devil (1612), The Duchess of Malfi (1614), and The Devil's Law Case (1623). His two great tragedies, The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, are darkly poetic and brooding, especially in their sardonic villain-spokesmen, Flamineo and Bosola. As critic Robert Dent has shown, Webster plundered other authors for his laborious, jewel-like, sententious, and epigrammatic style, but the overall effect is one of a soaring and passionate poetry. Webster employs the full gamut of violent and sensational effects, especially in The Duchess of Malfi, to render a physical… sense of horror. His plots are drawn from the political and amorous intrigues of Renaissance Italy.