Spanish Tragedy

Little is known about the life of Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), but we do know that in the early 1580s he was associated with a London theatre company. By 1594 he had completed one of the most famous plays of the 16th century: &quote;The Spanish Tragedy.&quote; At that time, the majority of English drama was stiff, and Kyd's new use of blank verse to present emotions on stage was revolutionary. He took foundations of Roman tragedy-a ghost, revenge and violence-and created a spectacular melodrama that greatly appealed to English audiences. The play's Hieronimo remains one of the most popular tragic characters on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stages, and served as a model for later tragic characters like Shakespeare's Hamlet. Full of allegorical characters and ghosts, onstage murder, suicide, play-within-the-play, real and feigned insanity and a bloody ending, &quote;The Spanish Tragedy&quote; established the popular revenge play and introduced audiences to the excitement of psychological realism.