Revenge Tragedy

Catalog description

Playgoers in Renaissance England loved their revenge. Bloody and violent, the revenge tragedies of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage relished in gore. Revenge is the purview of the powerless, driven to take desperate action against those who believe themselves above the law. We read the classical revenge tragedies of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Seneca before moving to those of Kyd, Shakespeare, Middleton, and Marston. Topics include: vengeance vs. justice, early English law, female revenge, genre-specific stage effects, and revenge tragedy parody.