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 and style,
The Revenger's Tragedy (anon.) presents vengeance as mimetic art, witty and cruel. Ford's
'Tis Pity She's a Whore represents an innovative re-working of the genre as a brother's love for his sister leads to his spectacular revenge on his rival, her husband, in a society in which brutal retaliation for perceived wrong is the norm. In Webster's
The White Devil crimes of passion ignite revenge in the courts of the Italian city states.
This student edition contains fully annotated, modernized texts of each play together with an introduction discussing the dramatic and poetic style of each play, focusing on its action and play of ideas.
Clare, Janet: - Janet Clare is Emeritus Professor of Renaissance Literature at the University of Hull, UK, and is currently Research Professor in English at the University of Bristol, UK, and Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, University of London, UK.
Ford, John: -
John Ford (1586-1639) was an English playwright whose works have often been cited as examples of the 'decadence' of Caroline Drama. In the 19th century he was admired by Charles Lamb but attacked by William Hazlitt and others, who accused him of lacking a sense of morality. However, many 20th-century critics have praised his insight into character and his skill in writing dialogue
His best known play is the bloody tragedy '
Tis Pity She's a Whore (1627). Other works inlcude
Love's Sacrifice (1627), the tragicomedy
The Lover's Melancholy (1628), and
Perkin Warbeck (1634), described by T. S. Eliot as "one of the very best historical plays in the whole of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama".
Kyd, Thomas: - Thomas Kyd (1558-94) was an English playwright, about whose life and works little is now known. Kyd was a contemporary of Spenser and a friend of Marlowe. He was criticized by the court poets for his lack of formal education but enjoyed great popularity as a dramatist. None of his early work having survived, he is chiefly remembered for The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1589), the first English revenge tragedy. This violent and bloody play proved extremely popular and was revived after the Restoration in a production remarked upon by Samuel Pepys. Its influence can be seen in English tragedy throughout the 17th century, most notably in Shakespeare's Hamlet, which employs not only the revenge theme but also the use of a play-within-a-play to reveal the identity of the murderer. Largely because of this, Kyd has often been suggested as the most likely author of the so-called 'ur-Hamlet' (c. 1594), a lost play that is known to have supplied many of the basic plot elements of Shakespeare's masterpiece. In recent years much attention has been paid to Kyd's possible role in the events leading to the death of his friend Christopher Marlowe. In May 1593 Kyd was arrested for possession of a 'heretical' treatise denying the divinity of Christ. Under severe torture he stated that the document had been given him by Marlowe, a noted freethinker who seems to have been the authorities' real target. Kyd's evidence led to an arrest warrant being issued against Marlowe, who was killed in murky circumstances a few weeks later. Kyd himself never recovered from his treatment in prison and died the following year.
Webster, John: - John Webster (1955-2016) was one of the world's leading systematic theologians. His distinguished career saw him publish over 20 books and 100 major articles, solidifying himself as an expert on systematic theology as well as the works of Karl Barth and Eberhard Jüngel. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2005 and, along with Colin Gunton, he co-founded the International Journal of Theology. Ultimately, he rose through the ranks of academia to become the Chair of Divinity at University of St Andrews, UK.
