ABSTRACT

Thomas Kyd’s play adapts a range of devices and themes from the Roman dramatist Seneca. The ghost, the use of soliloquy, the play-within-the-play, the madness and suicide all emerge from the Elizabethan preoccupation with Senecan drama. Elizabeth had been excommunicated for heresy by Pope Pius V in 1570 and, after an initial period of relative calm, anti-Catholic feeling was running high at the time of The Spanish Tragedy. In The Spanish Tragedy and other revenge plays, dramatists were able to explore topical issues from the comparative safety of the stage. Hieronimo’s dilemma and consequent actions are a compelling refracted image of the world inhabited by his audience: chivalric values, long-established systems of law and retribution, and implicit faith in divine and human authorities were all giving ground to more secular, pragmatic and ‘political’ systems of social organisation and cultural expression.