The Spanish Tragedy
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The Spanish Tragedie: or, Hieronimo is Mad Againe is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1587-1590 and first performed in London around 1590.
Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of its characters a personification of Revenge. The Spanish Tragedy was often referenced (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 lost Ur-Hamlet play that was one of Shakespeare's primary sources for Hamlet.)
Characters
In the original work- Ghost of Andrea, a Spanish nobleman, part 1 of a 2 part Chorus
- Revenge, his companion, the second member of the Chorus
- King of Spain
- Don Cyprian, Duke of Castile, the King's brother
- Lorenzo, Castile's son
- Bel-Imperia, Castile's Daughter
- Pedringano, her servant
- Christophil, her guard
- Hieronimo, Marshal of Spain
- Isabella, Hieronimo's wife
- Horatio, Hieronimo's son
- Don Bazulto, an old man
- Viceroy of Portugal
- Balthazar, the Viceroy's son
- Serberine, Balthazar's servant
- Don Pedro, the Viceroy's brother
- Alexandro, Portuguese nobleman
- Villuppo, Portuguese nobleman
- Bazardo, a painter
- Pedro, Hieronimo's servant
- Jaques, Hieronimo's servant
External links
- [Sources and Models for Hamlet: Thomas Kyd and Revenge Tragedy]
- [The Spanish Tragedie] from Project Gutenberg
- [The Spanish Tragedy] from elizabethanauthors.com
- [Thomas Kyd and The Spanish Tragedy]
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