ABSTRACT
Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe's plays depict a particularly rich sixteenth century Mediterranean and Italian culture but those appropriations largely screen out the plays' historical origins. Kyd, transformed the Italian courtesan into a figure of striking dignity and strength of character. At the end of the century, Thomas Heywood staged a broadly sympathetic portrayal of a native-born English courtesan in his two-part historical drama King Edward IV, 1 and 2. A number of verbal parallels between Ariosto's and Kyd's depictions of madness also suggest a connection. Marlowe, Peele and Greene all variously drew on Ariosto, and Kyd had enough Italian to translate Tasso's The Householder's Philosophy in 1588. Dekker's Imperia, Berger remarks, is of Roman derivation and belongs to a complex textual history. In his critical old-spelling edition, Berger notes that 'the romantic plot of the play re-works The Spanish Tragedy into a comedy'.
