SPARTAN
Spanish Tragedy
Thomas Kyd
Context
Born in 1558, Thomas Kyd began life with a series of good omens. He was the son of a prosperous middle-class family; his father, Francis Kyd, was a scrivener—a type of scribe that was very important in the complex world of Elizabethan law. When he was seven, Thomas began to attend the Merchant Taylors school, a new and modern school for boys. Admission to Merchant Taylors required a significant knowledge of either Latin or Greek as well as the Bible, so Thomas's entrance was no small accomplishment. In fact, among his classmates at the prestigious academy was Edmund Spenser, future author of the Elizabethan epic poem The Faerie Queene. There was little hint, in Kyd's early events, of the misfortunes and sufferings that would plague his final years, sufferings almost worthy of one of his tragic protagonists.
It was at school that Kyd probably first encountered the works of classical authors, such as Virgil and Seneca, who later on would have such a profound impact on him. After completing his education at Merchant Taylors, Thomas did not attend either of Cambridge or Oxford, as did his fellow playwright and sometime friend Christopher Marlowe. Instead, he probably became apprenticed in his father's trade. He also found employment as a translator, but it is believed that by 1583 (or thereabouts) he was already writing for the stage. Here he was to make his reputation and gain lasting fame mainly as the author of The Spanish Tragedy—one of the most popular, beloved, parodied, reviled and influential plays of the entire era, a play that was still being performed and read fifty years later and was to shape the work of all future tragedians to come, including Shakespeare.
Tragedy had first achieved greatness in ancient Greece, in Attica (the region surrounding Athens), where it developed out of religious festivals that celebrated the cult of the god Dionysus. The stories of Greek tragedies generally focused on a somehow gifted
Thomas Kyd
Context
Born in 1558, Thomas Kyd began life with a series of good omens. He was the son of a prosperous middle-class family; his father, Francis Kyd, was a scrivener—a type of scribe that was very important in the complex world of Elizabethan law. When he was seven, Thomas began to attend the Merchant Taylors school, a new and modern school for boys. Admission to Merchant Taylors required a significant knowledge of either Latin or Greek as well as the Bible, so Thomas's entrance was no small accomplishment. In fact, among his classmates at the prestigious academy was Edmund Spenser, future author of the Elizabethan epic poem The Faerie Queene. There was little hint, in Kyd's early events, of the misfortunes and sufferings that would plague his final years, sufferings almost worthy of one of his tragic protagonists.
It was at school that Kyd probably first encountered the works of classical authors, such as Virgil and Seneca, who later on would have such a profound impact on him. After completing his education at Merchant Taylors, Thomas did not attend either of Cambridge or Oxford, as did his fellow playwright and sometime friend Christopher Marlowe. Instead, he probably became apprenticed in his father's trade. He also found employment as a translator, but it is believed that by 1583 (or thereabouts) he was already writing for the stage. Here he was to make his reputation and gain lasting fame mainly as the author of The Spanish Tragedy—one of the most popular, beloved, parodied, reviled and influential plays of the entire era, a play that was still being performed and read fifty years later and was to shape the work of all future tragedians to come, including Shakespeare.
Tragedy had first achieved greatness in ancient Greece, in Attica (the region surrounding Athens), where it developed out of religious festivals that celebrated the cult of the god Dionysus. The stories of Greek tragedies generally focused on a somehow gifted