Thomas Kyd’s play, The Spanish Tragedy, portrays an immense amount of revenge and justice. These two themes harbor an intense desire within a majority of Kyd’s characters. Firstly and importantly, the audience is immediately introduced to Don Andrea, and the character of Revenge. Don Andrea relies primarily on Revenge to vindicate his murder. Bel-Imperia, the play’s strong willed female character, seeks a form of revenge and justice for the wrongs that have been done to her. She has loved and lost both Andrea and Horatio at the hands of a murderous act and therefore seeks revenge on Balthazaar that ultimately backfires. Kyd’s Act II opens up a new realm for revenge and justice upon the discovery of Horatio’s murder and lifeless body by his father, Hieronomo. Hieronomo vows to seek revenge on the person who committed this heinous crime and seek justice in the name of his son. At one point in time, Hieronomo considers joining his son in death and committing suicide, but ultimately decides against it in the name of revenge and justice.
Kyd portrays revenge and the act of justice as two pivotal themes in his play, but also in life. Elizabethans, and the readers of the twenty- first century, are both enraptured and familiar with these feelings of revenge and the urge for justice that so easily can harbor within ourselves.
The Spanish Tragedy is clearly a revenge play, with Revenge even being a character in the play. A question that has long been debated concerning the play and outside of the context of the play is whether Hiernonimo is morally just in seeking revenge. One can argue that Hiernomino really had no choice in seeking revenge for his son’s death, since the court would not offer him any help, granted his class status (another theme of the play).
We see Hieronimo’s inner conflict in deciding if he should choose “this way or that way” in Act III, scene xii, when Hiernomino grapples with the options of either taking his own life, or taking the way of revenge and justice for his son’s death. We see the negative connotations that are ascribed to taking the matter of revenge in one’s own hands in Hieronimo’s soliloquy, where he describes the path of revenge as a path through hell. Horatio cannot simply take these matters to the king since there are several obstacles in his way, such as his social class and diplomacy. Lorenzo is nephew of the king of Spain and Balthazar is a prince of Portugal who is a key figure in the negotiation between the two nations, so the possibility of Hieronimo finding justice by the way of the king seems unlikely.
In Act III, scene xiii, again we see Hieronimo struggling with the matter of vengeance. He exclaims, “Vindicta mihi!” or “vengeance is mine,” and considers leaving the matter of revenge to God. However, he comes to the conclusion that it is his destiny to find his revenge against his son’s murderers.
Hieronimo is a Knight-Marshal, hence carrying out justice is a part of his job. Although committing murder is an un-Christian thing to do, it seems to be Hieronimo’s only choice in a society where you cannot depend on the Crown for justice.
As stated in the course syllabus, you are asked to create four titled blog posts containing 2-3 paragraphs (the posting schedule is here) as well as to comment twice on blog posts about plays which you are not assigned to post about. To contribute your own post, do the following:
1. Go to the Blogs at Baruch website (https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/) and enter your username and password (they are the same as the username and password you enter to log in to your Baruch email).
2. Place your cursor over “My Sites” at the top of the screen, and click on “english renaissance drama.” You will see the site Dashboard–this is the back end of the site. To view the front end of the site, place your cursor over “english renaissance drama” and click on “Visit Site.” To create your own post, place your cursor over “+ New,” and click on “Post.” You may need to enter your username and password again, and then you will be in the post composition window. Write your post–remember, it should have a point of view and textual evidence. To publish your post, click on the “Publish” button on the right.
3. To comment on another student’s post, you should log in to the blog as described above and again hover over “english renaissance drama” and click on “Visit Site.” When you see a post that you would like to comment on, click on “Leave a Comment” or “X Comment(s)” at the bottom of the post and enter your comment in the box.
Part 2. Creating and Posting Scene Videos on the Blog
Later on in the semester, you will work in groups to videotape an interpretive reading of a scene from a Renaissance play. These videos should be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo and posted on the course blog. You will follow these basics steps to complete this assignment:
1. Work as a group to determine how you will stage and interpret your scene–closely follow the preparation instructions here. Film the scene using a phone videocamera, regular videocamera, or other videorecording device (such as an iPad).
2. Load your video onto your PC or Mac and edit as needed using a basic video editor, such as iMovie for Mac or Windows Live Movie Maker for PC (http://windows-live-movie-maker.en.softonic.com/).
3. Save the final version of your scene and then upload the file using YouTube or Vimeo (for both sites, simply log in or register, click on the Upload button, and follow the instructions to upload your video).
4. Start a new blog post (see 1-2 in Part 1 above). Copy and paste the YouTube URL into your blog post and hit “Publish.” For Vimeo, you can also simply copy and paste the URL, though you may need to change https:// to http://
Your video should appear and play within the published blog post. Here is an example from last semester:
Here is the link to the course website from last semester’s Shakespearean Scene Studies course: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng4140fall2012/
5. If you have any technical questions or run into trouble along the way, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Please don’t wait until the last minute to complete these assignments. You can expect me to respond to your email within 24 hours.
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We will all be actors performing the wild plays of the English Renaissance this semester, starting with The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Againe. It was one of the most popular plays of its time, frequently published in quarto editions. This is the title page of the 1615 edition. See page 4 of the Anthology for a closer look.
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