characteristics of revenge tragedy
The revenge play or revenge tragedy is a form of tragedy which was extremely popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. The best-known of these are Thomas Kyd 's The Spanish Tragedy and William Shakespeare 's Hamlet. The genre was first categorised by the scholar Fredson Bowers.
Contents [hide]
1 Origins, conventions, and themes
2 History
3 Influence
4 Film
5 References
Origins, conventions, and themes[edit]
The only clear precedent and influence for the Renaissance genre is the work of the Roman playwright and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger, perhaps most of all his Thyestes. It is still unclear if Seneca 's plays were performed or recited during Roman times; at any rate, Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights staged them, as it were, with a vengeance, in plays full of gruesome and often darkly comic violence. The Senecan model, though never followed slavishly, makes for a clear definition of the type, which almost invariably includes
A secret murder, usually of a benign ruler by a bad person
A ghostly visitation of the murder victim to a younger kinsman, generally a son
A period of disguise, intrigue, or plotting, in which the murderer and the avenger scheme against each other, with a slowly rising body count
A descent into either real or feigned madness by the avenger or one of the auxiliary characters
An eruption of general violence at the end, which (in the Renaissance) is often accomplished by means of a feigned masque or festivity
A catastrophe that utterly decimates the dramatis personae, including the avenger
Both the stoicism of Seneca and his political career (he was an advisor to Nero) leave their mark on Renaissance practice. In the English plays, the avenger is either stoic (albeit not very specifically) or struggling to be so; in this respect, the main thematic concern of the English revenge plays is the problem of pain. Politically, the English playwrights used the revenge plot to explore themes of absolute power, corruption
Contents [hide]
1 Origins, conventions, and themes
2 History
3 Influence
4 Film
5 References
Origins, conventions, and themes[edit]
The only clear precedent and influence for the Renaissance genre is the work of the Roman playwright and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger, perhaps most of all his Thyestes. It is still unclear if Seneca 's plays were performed or recited during Roman times; at any rate, Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights staged them, as it were, with a vengeance, in plays full of gruesome and often darkly comic violence. The Senecan model, though never followed slavishly, makes for a clear definition of the type, which almost invariably includes
A secret murder, usually of a benign ruler by a bad person
A ghostly visitation of the murder victim to a younger kinsman, generally a son
A period of disguise, intrigue, or plotting, in which the murderer and the avenger scheme against each other, with a slowly rising body count
A descent into either real or feigned madness by the avenger or one of the auxiliary characters
An eruption of general violence at the end, which (in the Renaissance) is often accomplished by means of a feigned masque or festivity
A catastrophe that utterly decimates the dramatis personae, including the avenger
Both the stoicism of Seneca and his political career (he was an advisor to Nero) leave their mark on Renaissance practice. In the English plays, the avenger is either stoic (albeit not very specifically) or struggling to be so; in this respect, the main thematic concern of the English revenge plays is the problem of pain. Politically, the English playwrights used the revenge plot to explore themes of absolute power, corruption
References: History[edit] Some early Elizabethan tragedies betray evidence of a Senecan influence; Gorboduc (1561) is notable in this regard