THOMAS KYD AND THE EVOLUTION OF REVENGE TRAGEDY IN ENGLISH DRAMA

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The Spanish Tragedy

The Spanish Tragedy is a harrowing and exciting drama on murder and revenge. There is a general feeling that the play was influenced by the Senecan tragedy. Vargas (1960) notes that the play:

Leans heavily on Senecan tragedy of the more bloodthirsty character. It incorporates a play-within-a-play as well as a ghost…its theme and general outline are sufficient to suggest that Shakespeare may have used it as a basis for his own play, Hamlet.

Although Kyd used Senecan devices, it is necessary to state that it is not the borrowed devices that endeared the play to the audience, but its moving dramatic action, its swift accomplishment of a carefully articulated scheme of revenge. Unlike Senecan tragedy that was essentially a closet drama, Kyd never tucked vital actions away. Brockett and Hildy (1999) observe that “Kyd places all the important events on stage, lets the action to range freely through time and place”. Kyd’s play is, therefore, a drama of vitality and energy.

The story and critical analysis

The Spanish Tragedy is an enactment of a father’s revenge for the murder of his son. Duke’s son and a Machiavellian character, Lorenzo out of selfish interest killed Horatio. Hieronimo the father of Horatio discovered this heinous crime, planned and carried out revenge against those responsible for his son’s death; but so many heads, including his own paid supreme price for this.

One significant departure from the classical model is that Kyd never relied on narration to reveal murder, but puts all the killings on stage since it meets the Elizabethan’s taste for blood and violence. He lets the audience to see the killing of Horatio; the murder of Seberine; the hanging of Pedringano, Isabella’s suicide; the killing of Balthazar and Lorenzo; the Suicide of Bel-Imperia; the killing of the Duke of Castile and Hieronimo’s suicide. In certain scenes, he reveals the madness of Isabella and Hieronimo, in order to show the avenger as a rant. Hieronimo bites off his tongue to avoid telling the Duke what he wants to hear.

In fact, Kyd shows his audience their own tempestuous existence on stage. Downer (1950) describes the play as “a holocaust, after which scarcely enough members of the cast remain alive to bear off the dead”. Kyd did not just model his play after Seneca; he showed great skill in constructing his plot. He created parallels to foreshadow major actions. For example, the mourning of the Viceroy of Portugal in Act 1 Scene 2 over the presumed killing of his son Balthazar, foreshadows the killing of Horatio and the mourning of his death by Hieronimo in Act II Scene 4.

Kyd used soliloquy to externalise Hieronimo’s griefs and misgivings which enabled him to win the sympathy of the audience. He made Lorenzo a Machiavellian archetype, an over ambitious and heartless individual for whom no method is devilish in achieving his desire. No weapon is too small or too big to be used in realising his ambition. In fact, Downer (1950) states that “craft, stratagem, policy are his watchwords and self-interest his guiding principle”.

The Spanish Tragedy is boisterous and horrifying. It is a play of blood and gore which provided a model for the dramaturgy of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, even though critics argue that Shakespeare’s revenge tragedies are tamed version of Kyd’s.

CONCLUSION

In this study unit, you were exposed to the work of one of the earliest Elizabethan playwrights, Thomas Kyd. The study reveals that Kdy stamped a seal of authority on the English stage through his popular play entitled The Spanish Tragedy. This play is regarded as the first revenge tragedy in the history of the English drama and it provided a model for other Elizabethan playwrights like Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. The study outlines and briefly discusses the elements of revenge tragedy, which include, among others, Machiavellian scheming, disguise, death, horror, vengeance, play – within – a – play, and happy ending.

This article examines the contributions of Thomas Kyd to the development of English drama. Specifically, attention is paid to the concept of revenge tragedy and its elements for Thomas Kyd is said to have introduced this genre to English drama. His own popular work, The Spanish Tragedy equally elicited our attention.

 

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