A most thorough study of the Elizabethan Tragedy of Revenge, its origins, development, the ethical influence affecting it and the inter-relations of the plays. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Paderborn, language: English, abstract: In Elizabethan England the genre of the revenge tragedy was very popular. Many plays of this kind by several different playwrights, including William Shakespeare, were written and staged in the 16 th and 17 th centuries. The success of the genre was not only due to it’s bloody, criminal, and therefore exciting action but also to the topicality of revenge at that time. In revenge plays questions were raised which concerned the Elizabethans and which made them reflect on their own situations and attitudes. It was around 1570, that English playwrights took over the concept of the revenge tragedy from foreign authors such as Seneca. 1 However, the genre was so successful and widely spread among the English, that a new Elizabethan revenge tragedy was developed. The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd, which can be regarded as the prototype of the English revenge drama, constituted a pattern containing the basic elements of a revenge play, which a lot of contemporary authors, such as Shakespeare, are said to have followed. 2 In the following, the success of the Elizabethan revenge play will be examined with respect to the attitude towards vengeance at that time. Furthermore, the relevance of the revenge tragedies for the Elizabethan audience will be taken into consideration. Afterwards, the pattern introduced with Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, the Kydian formula 3 , will be depicted before it’s basic constituents will be related to Hamlet, the most famous Shakespearean tragedy, in which revenge is an important motive. [...]

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.

Considering major works by Kyd, Shakespeare, Middleton and Webster among others, this book transforms current understanding of early modern revenge tragedy. Examing the genre in light of historical revisions to England's Reformations, and with appropriate regard to the social history of the dead, it shows revenge tragedy is not an anti-Catholic and Reformist genre, but one rooted in, and in dialogue with, traditional Catholic culture. Arguing its tragedies are bound to the age's funerary performances, it provides a new view of the contemporary theatre and especially its role in the religious upheavals of the period.

In this study of revenge tragedies - notably by Thomas Kyd, William Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, John Marston and John Webster - Janet Clare suggests that genres are not passively inherited, but made and re-made every time a new play is performed. The implication that there is an identifiable genre of revenge tragedy rehearsing common conventions is challenged as Clare examines Renaissance plays of revenge on their own terms. While disclosing evident inter-textual links and a similar appeal to classical material, revenge plays of the late Elizabethan and Jacobean period strive for a range of effects including satire, parody and farce. Some plays embody a providential outlook while others seem defiantly secular. Francis Bacon's famous maxim 'a kind of wild justice' captures the moral ambivalence of revenge: a rough justice on the point of anarchy. Janet Clare demonstrates the problematic nature of revenge as it defines dramatic action As the exploration of plays in this study reveals, revenge is not only bound up with justice, honour and duty, but impelled by perverted impulses, envy and resentment.