Thomas Kyd

Large Format for easy reading. Highly popular and influential in the development of Elizabethan drama, it established a new genre in English theatre; the revenge play.

The Spanish Tragedy

William Shakespeare

Arden of Feversham

The Tragedy of Master Arden of Faversham

John Webster

John Ford

Janet Clare

ANON

A collection of the four major tragedies from the early modern period ideal for students, with on page commentary notes to deepen understanding and a comprehensive introduction giving valuable contextual and critical information.

The Spanish Tragedy, The Revenger's Tragedy, 'Tis Pity She's A Whore and The White Devil

Four Revenge Tragedies

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Spanish Tragedy" by Thomas Kyd. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Written between 1582 and 1592, Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy was a wildly popular play of revenge and misfortune. Scholars believe Thomas Kyd's play was one of Shakespeare's inspirations for Hamlet.

Works

ANON ANON

Francis Bacon described revenge as a 'kind of wild justice'. Then as now, early modern playwrights and their theatre-going public were fascinated by the anarchic energies that a desire for retribution unleashes. Rather than rehearsing familiar conventions, each of these plays presents a unique social and cultural milieu where dark fantasies of revenge are variously played out. In Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy a grieving father seeks public justice for the murder of his son by envious princelings. When his attempts are thwarted he turns a court spectacle of murder into the 'real' thing. Blackly comic in its tone and style, The Revenger's Tragedy (anon.) presents vengeance as mimetic art, witty and cruel. Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore represents an innovative re-working of the genre as a brother's love for his sister leads to his spectacular revenge on his rival, her husband, in a society in which brutal retaliation for perceived wrong is the norm. In Webster's The White Devil crimes of passion ignite revenge in the courts of the Italian city states. This student edition contains fully annotated, modernized texts of each play together with an introduction discussing the dramatic and poetic style of each play, focusing on its action and play of ideas.

(the Text of the Second Quarto of 1604, with a Conjectural Text of the Alleged Kyd Hamlet Preceding It)

Hamlet and the Ur-Hamlet

Henry Chettle

Thomas Middleton

John Marston

As the Elizabethan era gave way to the reign of James I, England grappled with corruption within the royal court and widespread religious anxiety. Dramatists responded with morally complex plays of dark wit and violent spectacle, exploring the nature of death, the abuse of power and vigilante justice. In Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy a father failed by the Spanish court seeks his own bloody retribution for his son's murder. Shakespeare's 1603 version of Hamlet creates an avenging Prince of unique psychological depth, while Chettle's The Tragedy of Hoffman is a fascinating reworking of Hamlet's themes, probably for a rival theatre company. In Marston's Antonio's Revenge, thwarted love leads inexorably to gory reprisals and in Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy, malcontent Vindice unleashes an escalating orgy of mayhem on a debauched Duke for his bride's murder, in a ferocious satire reflecting the mounting disillusionment of the age. Emma Smith's introduction considers the political and religious climate behind the plays and the dramatic conventions within them. This edition includes a chronology, playwrights' biographies and suggestions for further reading.

The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet, Antonio's Revenge, The Tragedy of Hoffman, The Revenger's Tragedy

Five Revenge Tragedies

A major new edition of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy,an outstanding landmark of Elizabethan drama. In its time, it quickly became a box office success and probably inspired Shakespeare to write Hamlet, as it contains a ghost, murders that demand revenge and a hero that hesitates and contemplates suicide. As a revenge tragedy, it set up the salient features of a dramatic genre that would last decades. Its hero, the aged Marshall of Spain Hieronimo, whose son is murdered at night, soon transcended the play and became the standard stage representation of grief, rhetorical passion and madness. Hieronimo's main antagonist is one of the first Machiavellian characters of English drama. This edition explores the play in relation to its historical context and contemporary Iberian dynastic policy. It also relates the play, as a literary artefact, to other artistic manifestations of the European Renaissance and offers a fresh assessment of the play's stage history. For the first time in the play's textual history, this edition presents an integrated text inviting a reading of the play as it was published both in 1592 and in 1602.

The Spanish Tragedy. Rev Ed

The Spanish Tragedy, 1592

Frederick Samuel Boas

Jakob Ayrer

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Works of Thomas Kyd

2014 Reprint of 1948 Edition, which reprints the Rare 1592 Edition in the British Library. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "The Spanish Tragedy," is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, it established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of its characters a personification of Revenge. ANDREA, a Spanish courtier, has been killed in battle by Balthazar, Prince of Portugal. During his lifetime he was the lover of the daughter of the Duke of Castile. Now when Andrea's ghost appears before Pluto to be apportioned its proper place in the world of shadows, Pluto permits the ghost, accompanied by the spirit of Revenge, to return to earth to see vengeance wrecked on his slayer. "The Spanish Tragedy" was often referred to (or parodied) in works written by other Elizabethan playwrights, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe. Many elements of "The Spanish Tragedy," such as the play-within-a-play used to trap a murderer and a ghost intent on vengeance, appear in Shakespeare's Hamlet. This edition is reprinted by the British Museum from the earliest surviving edition known as of 1948.

The Spanish Tragedy [1592 Edition]

With Additions, 1602

Reproduction of the original: The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd

Thomas Norton

Thomas Sackville

Two Tudor Tragedies

The Spanish Tragedie Hieronimo is Mad Again 1587 By Thomas Kyd Containing the lamentable end of DON HORATIO, and BEL-IMPERIA: with the pittiful death of olde HIERONIMO. The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of its characters a personification of Revenge. The Spanish Tragedy was often referred to (or parodied) in works written by other Elizabethan playwrights, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe. Many elements of The Spanish Tragedy, such as the play-within-a-play used to trap a murderer and a ghost intent on vengeance, appear in Shakespeare's Hamlet. (Thomas Kyd is frequently proposed as the author of the hypothetical Ur-Hamlet that may have been one of Shakespeare's primary sources for Hamlet.)

1587

The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of its characters a personification of Revenge. The Spanish Tragedy was often referred to (or parodied) in works written by other Elizabethan playwrights, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe.

Thomas Kyd

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