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Kyd's play The Spanish tragedy was far and away the most popular play in Elizabethan England, so much so that it spawned a whole new genre of play: the revenge tragedy.
It starts out with the Spanish lord Lorenzo and his Portuguese prisoner Balthazar. Lorenzo and Balthazar quickly become friends. Balthazar falls in love with Lorenzo's sister Bel-Imperia. However, she seems to be falling for Horatio, son of Hieronymo. They murder Horatio which drives Hieronymo's wife crazy and she kills herself. Hieronymo vows revenge and plans an entertainment for the king: the play Soliman and Perseda. While he's working on that, two more people die as a result of Lorenzo's machinations.
The performance of the play is a bloodbath. In his "performance", Hieronymo actually kills Lorenzo and Bel-imperia kills Balthazar. Bel-imperia kills herself and Hieronymo bites his own tongue out to prevent himself from naming Bel-Imperia as his accomplice, murders Lorenzo's father and kills himself. The stage ends up littered with corpses with only minor characters left to drag them off.
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
Wiki User
∙ 12y agoThe Spanish Tragedy is called a revenge tragedy for the simple fact that it is a tragedy about revenge. More specifically it was the first revenge tragedy of its kind. It set the example that subsequent revenge tragedies followed.
The distinguishing features of revenge tragedy, established by The Spanish Tragedy are
- The appearance of a ghost (usually to initiate or spur on the revenge plot)
- The foregrounding of revenge as the primary focus of the play
- Spectacular violence and body count (taken from Roman plays, particularly Seneca)
- Madness (real or faked)
- An obstacle stalling the revenger's retribution.
- Many revenge tragedies (this one included) feature a play within the play and often people are killed in the play.
Wiki User
∙ 12y agoMost definitely. It was the first of its kind, initiating the genre's popularity in Elizabethan drama.
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Hamlet is a revenge play but the title character undermines the genre through his in taking the action around which the entire play is built?
The genre of Hamlet is a revenge tragedy. In this play, the ghost of Hamlet's father returns to get vengeance.
Do you agree or disagree that Hamlet suffers because he is ill-suited to be the protagonist for a revenge tragedy?
It's an old theory about Hamlet that he is "a man who couldn't make up his mind", (this simpleminded statement is made at the beginning of Laurence Olivier's 1948 Hamlet movie), and that his indecisiveness is what keeps him from revenging himself on Claudius at the beginning of Act II. Hamlet himself supports this in his soliloquy "How all occasions do inform against me." It is an even older idea that Hamlet is a dilletante, for whom taking action is all too sordid. This is the Hamlet painted by Delacroix and loved by the Victorian romantics. A newer idea is that Hamlet has developed a modern ethic in which revenge is wrong, and that he suffers conflict between his duty to his father and his belief that what he has been commanded to do is wrong. In all of these cases there is a notion that Hamlet has some kind of genetic flaw which prevents him from executing the revenge with alacrity. But an example of any other revenge tragedy reveals that the revenger does not rush in in act two and consummate his revenge--he lays some devious and complicated plot which takes most of the play to work out. Middleton's Revenger's Tragedy or Kyd's Spanish Tragedy are good examples. So in this sense, Hamlet's cautiousness about completing the revenge is typical of all revenge tragedy heroes and makes him most suitable for the role. (They all suffer as well). A further approach would jettison the notion that characters in plays never develop and have some permanent and incurable flaw which does them in. Basically, this means chucking Aristotle in the bin (where, in the opinion of Fintan O'Toole and your answerer, he belongs) and recognising that people change and that plays about people who change are more interesting than those about unchanging caricatures. In this view, Hamlet starts out as a self-absorbed and somewhat ineffectual man who, as the play goes on, goes through periods of self-doubt and control freakiness to become the kind of man who can turn the tables on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, leap aboard a pirate ship, confront Laertes at Ophelia's funeral and ultimately to "defy augury" and to accept his fate. And through this process he becomes the kind of man who can indeed be the protagonist in a revenge tragedy, which he of course is--the protagonist in the greatest revenge tragedy ever.
Why is the ghost doom'd to walk the night?
He has unfinished business. He was killed in such a way that he cannot rest (he is in purgatory), and he seeks revenge for his murder by inducing his son to kill his murderer. This conceit forms a part of the popular play form called the "revenge tragedy" of which Hamlet is an example. There is always some ghostly or spiritual entity egging someone on to revenge.
What are three generic plays that Shakespeare wrote?
Very few of Shakespeare's plays could be described as "generic", as he was always pushing boundaries and exploring new aspects of the form. Some of his early work might be considered to be generic, especially The Comedy of Errors, which is clearly in the style of (and based on a play by) Plautus. Titus Andronicus might be thought of as a generic revenge tragedy after the style of Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. If Shakespeare wrote Edward III, it is a fairly generic chronicle history play.
What is the revenge in Hamlet?
Revenge is what drives the majority of the action of the play. It is the obligation Hamlet is given by the ghost of his father early on in the play and shapes most of the interactions between characters from that moment on. The complicated morality of revenge is a large part of Hamlet's torment. The revenge motive is what makes Hamlet "feign" madness and establishes the chain of events that leads to Ophelia's madness and death, as well as the enormous body count that amasses by the end of the play.
Consider the spanish tragedy as a revenge tragedy?
"The Spanish Tragedy" by Thomas Kyd is considered one of the earliest and most influential examples of a revenge tragedy. The play follows the classic structure of a protagonist seeking revenge for a crime or injustice, culminating in a violent and bloody conclusion. The themes of justice, revenge, and moral corruption are central to the play, making it a quintessential example of the revenge tragedy genre.
Is DrFaustus a revenge tragedy?
No, it is more of a tragedy of ambition. Revenge is not the primary focus of the play, which is the main requirement of the revenge tragedy genre.
What are the 4 elements of Shakespeare's revenge tragedy?
Shakespeare wrote two revenge tragedies, Hamlet and Titus Andronicus. Let's see if some suggested elements fit both plays and two other famous revenge tragedies, Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and Webster's The White Devil: 1. A play within a play: Hamlet yes, Spanish Tragedy yes, Devil no, Titus not really, unless you count Tamora dressing up as Revenge. 2. Ghosts: Hamlet yes, Spanish Tragedy yes, Devil and Titus no. 3. Murder/death: You betcha, lots of both in all four plays 4. Madness: Yes, there is feigned madness in The White Devil and Hamlet and real madness in the Spanish Tragedy, Titus and Hamlet. 5. Personifications of Revenge: Yes in Spanish tragedy and Titus, no in the others 6. Feigned reconciliation: Spanish Tragedy yes, Titus yes, Hamlet yes, Devil no. 7. Moors: Titus yes, White Devil yes, the others no. 8. Disguise: In The White Devil and Titus, and also in The Revenger's Tragedy, another revenge tragedy 9. Adultery: Implied in Hamlet, yes in the White Devil and Titus, not in the Spanish Tragedy.
Who wrote the spanish tradegy?
"The Spanish Tragedy" was written by Thomas Kyd, an English playwright believed to have written the play around 1587. It is considered one of the earliest examples of a revenge tragedy in English literature.
What is revenge tragedy?
Revenge Tragedy is a technique used in plays. It involves the leading character avenging the death of a loved one. The most famous Revenge Tragedy is William Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.
Why was revenge tragedy popular?
The revenge tragedy was created in the time of Shakespeare, at that time most people liked tragedies or revenge plays, somebody combined them to attract audiences to a new type of play.
What genre is Macbeth?
Pile of dead bodies at the end and no weddings equals tragedy.
What is the play hamlet subgenre?
It's a revenge tragedy.
What is the name of the Elizabethan dramatist who wrote 'The Spanish Tragedy'?
The Elizabethan dramatist who wrote 'The Spanish Tragedy' is Thomas Kyd.
Is Duchess of Malfi a revenge tragedy?
Yes, "The Duchess of Malfi" is often categorized as a revenge tragedy due to its themes of betrayal, murder, and the pursuit of vengeance. The play explores the consequences of seeking revenge and the tragic outcomes that result from these actions.
What kind of play is Macbeth?
He wrote comedies and tragedies; history plays and fantasy plays; cynical plays and idealistic plays; superb plays and others which were . . . not so good, shall we say?
What type of play was halmet?
'Hamlet' is in the general category of "revenge tragedy."
