Four Revenge Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy, The Revenger's Tragedy, 'Tis Pity She's A Whore and The White Devil (New Mermaids)

by Thomas Kyd, John Webster, and John Ford

Janet Clare and Prof. Janet Clare (Introduction)

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Francis Bacon described revenge as a ‘kind of wild justice’. Then as now, early modern playwrights and their theatre-going public were fascinated by the anarchic energies that a desire for retribution unleashes. Rather than rehearsing familiar conventions, each of these plays presents a unique social and cultural milieu where dark fantasies of revenge are variously played out.

In Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy a grieving father seeks public justice for the murder of his son by envious princelings. When his attempts are thwarted he turns a court spectacle of murder into the ‘real’ thing. Blackly comic in its tone...Read more
  • ISBN10 1408159600
  • ISBN13 9781408159606
  • Publish Date 8 May 2014
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Imprint Methuen Drama
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 600
  • Language English