User:Hummingbird Hue/Notes on "The Spanish Tragedy" Wikipedia Article

Introduction

 * Introduction to Revenge as a genre/character
 * First Elizabethan drama
 * Play parodies by Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson
 * The play within a play

Performance
Early Performances (1590s)

Modern Performances (1980s)
 * Many early performances of Jeronimo in the late 1590s, but unclear about the specificities
 * Lord Strange's Men performed play at The Rose (theatre)
 * Admiral's Men performed with Pembroke's Men
 * [RESEARCH] Can I learn more about the history of The Spanish Tragedy, and how it was received by the audience?


 * Royal National Theatre then Royal National Theatre then Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
 * Amateur Productions: Oxford University, then Harvard University then Marlowe Society the Baron's Men then Experimental Theater Board
 * Other Professional Performances (modern-dress production): Arcola Theatre
 * !!! Never staged or filmed on TV, but... has been on the radio
 * [RESEARCH] What happened between 1590s to 1980s? We know when plays occurred, but why did x group perform it in x location? How did the plays relate/differ from each other?

Publication
Estimated Publication Time Period: 1583–1591


 * Evidence needed for the completion date
 * Doesn't reference Spanish Armada
 * Probably 1587
 * Only one copy remains of Q1 of The Spanish Tragedy since the offending books were destroyed
 * Q2 transferred ownership (what are these Qs...?)
 * Q4 was reprinted

Authorship

 * Originally anonymous until someone mentioned Kyd (Kyd's style matches this too)
 * Printing errors due to mistyping

Characters

 * Spain vs Portugal vs Hieronimo's play character list
 * !!! No page about Balthazar (even though he is a main character in this!)

Plot
Before Play Begins


 * War between Portugal and Spain (Portugal lost)
 * The role of Andrea and Revenge

During Play


 * Who captured Balthazar? Horatio, but Lorenzo cheats to get partial credit
 * Bel-Imperia falls in love with Horatio as an act of  revenge  to get back at Balthazar for killing her lover Andrea
 * Balthazar falls in love with Bel-Imperia
 * The Spanish king wants them to get  married  to repair the Spain/Portugal tension
 * Lorenzo & Balthazar murder Horatio
 * Isabella and Hieronimo go mad
 * Lorenzo locks Bel-Imperia away; she sends Hieronimo a letter in her blood
 * Lorenzo asks Pedringano to kill Balthazar's servant Serberine (who did nothing)
 * Pedringano is sentenced to death (sadly)
 * Lorenzo convinces King that Horatio is still alive (false)
 * Hieronimo can't see King
 * Isabella commits suicide, Hieronimo goes mad
 * Dig ground with his dagger
 * Lorenzo says that Hieronimo acts this way out of jealousy (not out of grief and suffering)

Hieronimo's Play Soliman and Perseda


 * Play involves  real daggers  (not fake prop daggers)
 * Lorenzo and Bel-Imperia are stabbed to death in front of the King, Viceroy, and Duke
 *  Hieronimo and Bel-Imperia follow through with their revenge  by actually murdering the others during the "play"
 * Bel-Imperia stabs herself (but this was not supposed to happen...?)
 * After Hieronimo confesses what happened, he  bites his tongue 
 * Can't talk under torture (but what about other conclusions as to why be bit his tongue?)
 * Kills Duke
 * Kills himself
 * Andrea and Revenge are satisfied

Influences

 *  Seneca : bloody tragedy, horrible rhetoric, Ghost character, revenge themes
 * Thyestes: Ghost of Andrea and Revenge are similar to Tantalus and Fury
 * Onomastic rhetoric
 * Direct references
 *  !!! I should say how instead of seeing how it is referenced, say how Kyd does his own spy 
 * ! !! Medieval tradition 
 * Ghost character part of the chorus
 * Metrical medieval play that reflects on their downfall
 * Revenge acts as a guide

Allusions

 * Super influential!!! Specifically Hieronimo

1602 Additions

 * Added five passages
 * Play exists with more than one company
 * Adaptations
 * Richard Burbage acting as Hieronimo

Themes and Motifs
Revenge


 * Debate: Responsibility for justice on the individual or on the society?
 * [RESEARCH] Spanish justice system
 * [RESEARCH] What scholars say about revenge
 * [RESEARCH] The Old Law... "eye for an eye"

Murder & Death


 * Themes of hangings, murders, near deaths... mutilation, torture, and death... (Molly Smith)
 * [RESEARCH]  Smith, Molly (1992). "The Theater and the Scaffold: Death as Spectacle in The Spanish Tragedy". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. 32 (2): 217–232. 

Social Mobility


 * Striving for more power
 * Pedringano is a servant, lowest rank... only a tool
 * [RESEARCH] Commentary on the hierarchy of low, middle, and high class
 * Hieronimo and family as "middling sort"
 * Middle class: seen as a threat as they go closer to the higher class

Structure

 * Play within a play
 * Revenge as internal and external struggles, climax at the play within a play part
 * Buildup, climax, resolution outline
 * [RESEARCH] Specificities of what's happening in the play within a play and why it's so special? 
 * Senecan Tragedy: different acts, bloody climax, revenge
 * Themes of Latin and Christianity against pagan ideals
 * Influenced Hamlet
 * [RESEARCH] Compare The Spanish Tragedy to Hamlet