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In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul writes: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers: for there is no power but of God: and the powers that be, are ordained of God.” In the wake of such a declaration, what constitutes tyranny? When is resistance to tyranny justified? What forms of recourse are compatible with the Christian obedience enjoined by Paul? How did early modern literature offer a means of leverage, redress and coping with the depredations of “the powers that be”? In search of provisional answers to these questions, this course tracks the representation and rhetorical evaluation of the tyrant figure at the intersection of political philosophy and literature. Political writings by Aristotle, Plato, Marsilius of Padua, Dante, Jean Bodin, James I, John Milton and Hanna Arendt are placed in dialogue with historical and theoretical writing by Greg Walker, Stanley Cavell, Mary Nyquist and Terri Snyder on tyranny, slavery, resistance theory and biopolitics. Literary texts, principally drama and prose romances, will include The Wakefield Master’s “Herod the Great”, Sir Philip Sidney’s “The New Arcadia”, Christopher Marlowe’s “Tamburlaine”, Robert Greene’s “Planetomachia”, William Shakespeare’s “Richard III” and “The Winter’s Tale”, Ben Jonson’s “Sejanus His Fall”, and Elizabeth Cary’s “The Tragedy of Mariam, Fair Queen of Jewry”.