Revenge play

The revenge tragedy, or revenge play, is a dramatic genre in which the protagonist seeks revenge for an imagined or actual injury. The term revenge tragedy was first introduced in 1900 by A. H. Thorndike to label a class of plays written in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras (circa 1580s to 1620s). Most scholars argue that the revenge tragedies of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries stemmed from Roman tragedy, in particular, Seneca's Thyestes. Seneca's tragedies followed three main themes: the inconsistency of fortune (Troades), stories of crime and the evils of murder (Thyestes), and plays in which poverty, chastity and simplicity are celebrated (Hippolytus). In Thyestes, Seneca portrayed the evil repercussions of murder. In order to exact revenge on his brother Thyestes for adultery with his wife, Atreus lures him to Argos under the pretext of a shared rule, but instead tricks him into eating the cooked flesh of his own children. Seneca's criminals (in this case Thyestes) are always deserving of their punishment unless they repent, since he believed the will to do evil is entirely in the hands of the individual, who must therefore be appropriately punished. This ethical logic becomes complicated, however, since the revenging murder is also a crime, transforming the revenger into a criminal, and thus prompting retribution on behalf of the punished. The ghost of the murdered victim urges revenge (Hamlet, Spanish Tragedy), Metatheatricality Madness Murder Cannibalism The revenge tragedy was established on the Elizabethan stage with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy in 1587. In this play, Hieronimo's discovery of his son Horatio's dead body leads him into a brief fit of madness, after which he discovers the identity of his son's murderers and plans his revenge through a play-within-a-play. It is during this play that he enacts his revenge, after which he kills himself. With Hieronimo's quest for justice in the face of a seemingly powerless state, Spanish Tragedy introduced the thematic issues of retributive justice that would be explored as the genre gained popularity and developed on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage.