the spanish tragedy essay questions

The Spanish Tragedy Questions

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• The Spanish Tragedy is like ancient Greek and Roman Theater in that it has a chorus. The ghost of Don Andrea and Revenge serve as an onstage audience that comments on the actions (and inactions) of the characters. The role of the chorus is largely to remind us of the original injustice that needs to be avenged. How would the play be different if they weren't there? What do constant reminders from a ghost say about how humans remember (or misremember) the dead? Would we have less sympathy for the murdered Don Andrea if his ghost were not present onstage? And what does the character Revenge teach us about, well, revenge?
• This is a play about family problems in conflict with larger political concerns. Hieronimo is the Knight Marshall of Spain, which means that he is responsible for imposing justice on criminals. The great irony of the play is that Hieronimo (the instrument for justice) has to go outside of the legal system to get justice for his own family. How do family problems interact with state problems in the play? When do family problems and political problems converge/contradict?
• Bel-Imperia's arranged marriage to the heir apparent of Portugal and her resolve to choose her own lovers are central conflicts in the play. Bel-Imperia is a strong, independently minded woman in a world in which women are controlled and exchanged like objects. Some commentators, however, have argued that Bel-Imperia also uses love as a political tool. Does she truly love Horatio? Or does she, just like her father and uncle, use love to accomplish ulterior motives? Does she have any other options to take control of her destiny?
• We are led to believe that Prince Balthazar's arranged marriage with Bel-Imperia would bring peace between warring Portugal and Spain. Presumably, Balthazar's death would lead to more war and loss of life that would far overshadow the murders of Don Andrea and Horatio. And yet the play asks us to cheer on Hieronimo to kill Balthazar? As the audience, do we care about future loss of life after Hieronimo gets his justice? What does this say about the ethics of revenge? And what does this say about the emotions that drive revenge?
• Revenge is a dish best served cold. At least we've heard as much. A lot. And, hey, we might even enjoy the sadistic pleasure of watching retribution slowly play out. Wow, what does this say about us? So, what is the point of delayed revenge in The Spanish Tragedy ? In 3.15, Revenge literally falls asleep, after which Andrea's ghost says, "Awake, Revenge, for thou art ill-advised to sleep away what thou art warned (read: urged) to watch" (3.15.10-11). What's with all this sleepy revenge business? Is this just a boring play, or does sleeping Revenge signify something deeper?
• Ambition plays a huge role in the play: Pedringano and Serberine kill Horatio to advance their careers, Villupo wrongly accuses Alexandro of murder to get in good with the Viceroy, Balthazar knows that he will enhance his political authority by marrying Bel-Imperia, and we find out early on that the Spanish and Portuguese rulers wage war to accrue more power and money. You could argue that this is more of an ambition drama than a revenge drama. With this in mind, compare and contrast ambition and revenge as motivating factors in the play. How are ambition and revenge different kinds of motivation? How are they the same?
• Revenge drives most of the action of the play. But what about our prime villain, Lorenzo? His motivations are less apparent, right? While Lorenzo makes use of other character's ambitions and is ultimately responsible for most of the evil deeds in the play, his own motivations are left unclear. What effect does this have on the play? Is Kyd obscuring darker motives that he may only hint at from time to time? If not, what actually motivates Lorenzo?
• Like most Renaissance dramas, The Spanish Tragedy has a subplot. In this play, the subplot follows a wrongful murder accusation that nearly leads to the execution of an innocent character, while the main plot unfolds a murder that never leads to formal charges. What does the mirror effect of these plots accomplish? How are the plots thematically connected? And what do you learn about the main plot from the subplot?
• What's up with the overkill at the end of the play? The Duke of Castile hasn't done anything that deserves a death sentence, yet our avenging hero, Hieronimo, mercilessly slaughters him along with all the bad guys? Can Hieronimo still be a hero after needlessly killing the Duke?
• The play ends with a play-within-a-play. It seems significant that characters die while acting in a play embedded within the larger play. This means that we get actors playing characters who are dying, who are at the same time playing actors playing other characters. Confusing, right? So, what's with all the layers of theatricality? Why does the play go out of its way to remind the audience that it's watching/reading a play?

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The Spanish Tragedy

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Spanish Tragedy: Introduction

The spanish tragedy: plot summary, the spanish tragedy: detailed summary & analysis, the spanish tragedy: themes, the spanish tragedy: quotes, the spanish tragedy: characters, the spanish tragedy: symbols, the spanish tragedy: literary devices, the spanish tragedy: theme wheel, brief biography of thomas kyd.

Historical Context of The Spanish Tragedy

Other books related to the spanish tragedy.

• Full Title: The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again
• When Written: Unknown; likely in the mid- to late 1580s.
• Where Written: London, England
• When Published: Unknown; earliest surviving edition was published in 1592.
• Literary Period: The Renaissance
• Genre: Tragedy
• Setting: Spain and Portugal
• Climax: Hieronimo’s play-within-a-play, in which he and Bel-Imperia exact their revenge on Lorenzo and Balthazar for the murder of Horatio.
• Antagonist: Lorenzo

Extra Credit for The Spanish Tragedy

Famous classmates. Kyd attended the Merchant Taylors’ School in the late 1560s with Edmund Spenser, who later became the famous English poet best known for his epic poem The Faerie Queene , first published in 1590.

Return to the classics. Kyd’s plays are modeled after classical tragedies, especially those by Seneca, a Roman dramatist from the first century AD. Kyd was the first to successfully bring modern adaptations of classical works to the Elizabethan stage, and his original works, such as The Spanish Tragedy , are infused with this classical influence.  

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The Spanish Tragedy

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The Spanish Tragedy

By thomas kyd, the spanish tragedy quotes and analysis.

"Here sit we down to see the mystery, And serve for chorus in this tragedy." Revenge, 1.1

At the beginning of the play, Revenge appears on stage with the ghost of Andrea and invites him to watch the aftermath of his death unfold. Here, Revenge also notes that the two of them will perform the role of chorus in the play. This quotation is significant because it emphasize the novelty of The Spanish Tragedy as a revenge play. The Spanish Tragedy predates most other early modern tragedies (including another revenge play, Hamlet ), and therefore more explicitly informs what would have been an unfamiliar audience about the structure of the play. By contrast, later revenge plays eliminated the chorus and personified Revenge altogether.

"But how can love find harbor in my breast Till I revenge the death of my beloved? Yes, second love shall further my revenge." Bel-Imperia, 1.4

As Bel-Imperia mourns the death of Andrea, her first love, she almost simultaneously decides to give her affections to Horatio in order to get revenge of Andrea's murderer, Balthazar. This quotation reveals Bel-Imperia as the first revenger in the play. Notably, Bel-Imperia decides to use romantic love – a distinctly feminine power in this case – to exact her revenge on Balthazar while other male revengers like Hieronimo must plan more elaborate schemes to succeed in their revenge.

"Ere we go from hence I'll turn their friendship into fell despite Their love to mortal hate, their day to night, Their hope into despair, their peace to war, Their joys to pain, their bliss to misery." Revenge, 1.5

As Don Andrea and Revenge discuss the point of watching the events of the play unfold, Revenge assure Don Andrea that he will sufficiently ruin the lives of his enemies. Revenge makes this point because Don Andrea has grown impatient and wants to see revenge actually manifest. Don Andrea's impatience and Revenge's response suggest that a successful revenge plot will likely be a slow-moving one, a reality that Hieronimo himself faces as he grapples with bringing his vengeance to fruition.

"See'st thou this handkerchief besmeared with blood? It shall not from me till I take revenge. See'st thou those wounds that yet are bleeding fresh? I'll not entomb them till I have revenged. Then will I joy amidst my discontent; Till then my sorrow never shall be spent." Hieronimo, 2.5

When Hieronimo declares his own need for revenge, he approaches it from a vastly different perspective than Bel-Imperia. While Bel-Imperia schemes subtly and uses the emotions of romantic love to her benefit, Hieronimo becomes obsessed with blood and violence. Looking at the body of his dead son, Hieronimo implies that his version of revenge will involve still more blood, emphasizing the difference between how male and female revenge manifests in the play.

"Turn down this path, thou shalt be with him straight, Or this and then thou need'st not take thy breath. This way, or that way? Soft and fair, not so; For if I hang or kill myself, let's know Who will revenge Horatio's murder then?" Hieronimo, 3.1

In this quotation, Hieronimo contemplates suicide as he holds a dagger in one hand and hangman's noose in the other. He knows that suicide ("this path") will allow him to be with his son once again, but remembers that if he is gone, there will be nobody left to avenge Horatio's murder. The play links the "choices" of suicide and revenge to showcase the power of grief and how it affects the mind. Furthermore, many believe Hieronimo's "this way, or that way?" speech was the inspiration behind Hamlet's "to be, or not to be?" speech many years later.

"Content, thyself, Andrea. Though I sleep, Yet is my mood soliciting their souls." Revenge, 3.1

In a moment of dark comedy, Revenge falls asleep on stage and is roused by the impatient Don Andrea, who demands to know why the exacting of revenge is taking so long. Revenge once again reminds Don Andrea that the process is a slow but effective one, ultimately suggesting that justice, though often delayed, is always served to those who deserve it.

"My soul has silver wings, That mounts me up unto the highest heavens, To Heaven; ay, there sits my Horatio, Backed with a troop of fiery cherubins Dancing about his newly healed wounds, Signing sweet hymns and chanting heavenly notes—" Isabella, 3.8

When Isabella begins acting mad, her maid asks whether her soul is tormented, and Isabella responds with this quotation. She swears she can see her son in Heaven, surrounded by angels who dance around his wounds. Isabella's description might be interpreted as a further indication of her evolving lunacy. However, this moment also suggests that Isabella's madness is precisely what protects her (temporarily) from the onslaught of her grief, helping her convince herself that Horatio is safe and well in the afterlife.

"Hieronimo, for shame, Hieronimo, Be not a history to aftertimes Of such ingratitude unto thy son." Bel-Imperia, 4.1

In this quotation, Bel-Imperia reminds Hieronimo of his responsibility as an avenger, encouraging him to continue his revenge plot so that he is not remembered as ungracious toward his son's memory. This quotation supports the argument that Bel-Imperia, rather than Hieronimo, is the primary avenger in the play (she is, after all, the first to declare revenge on Balthazar). This quotation also suggests that the characters are concerned with memory, their legacies, and how they themselves will be remembered in history.

"Down with these branches and these loathsome boughs Of this unfortunate and fatal pine! Down with them, Isabella, rend them up, And burn the roots from whence the rest is sprung! I will not leave a root, a stalk, a tree, a bough, a branch, a blossom, nor a leaf, No, not an herb within this garden plot." Isabella, 4.2

For Isabella's version of revenge, she decides to cut down the arbor where her son was hanged. As she attacks the arbor, she becomes determined to obliterate it completely, destroying all signs of life. While her behavior might seem somewhat pointless, it is significant on a symbolic scale: Isabella's destruction of the arbor – which she later connects to her own "cursed" womb – emphasizes the fact that women have the ability to produce life. Men, by contrast, are the ones in the play who take lives. Isabella's actions showcase her need, as a woman, to turn inward for revenge while men like her husband can act outwardly by seeking blood.

"Bethink thyself, Hieronimo; Recall thy wits, recount thy former wrongs Thou hast received by murder of thy son..." Hieronimo, 4.3

In Act Four, Hieronimo has to talk himself into continuing his revenge plot. He does this by giving himself a rousing pep talk in which he refers to himself in the third person and remembers all the terrible things that have happened to him (namely the murder of his son and the recent suicide of his wife Isabella). This quotation emphasizes the notion that revenge is a duty that must be upheld in order to honor the dead.

The Spanish Tragedy Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Spanish Tragedy is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Kyd's indebtness to Senex with reference to the Spanish Tragedy?

The events that brought the senex to Hieronimo were a stark reminder of Horatio's death, and his own grief. Thus, he gathers the senex to him, almost symbolically, and seeing his grief in the old man. The senex's tragedy is poignantly but...

If the Spanish King behaved wisely, the tragic death of so many people did not occur in The Spanish Tragedy. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

I agree that the King's actions were responsible for numerous deaths. Had he not required his daughter to marry a man she didn't love, she might not have run away with Horatio, and all of the deaths that subsequently occurred might never have...

what is revange tragedy?

Revenge Tragedy is a style of drama, popular in England during the late 16th and 17th centuries, in which the basic plot was a quest for vengeance and which typically featured scenes of carnage and mutilation. If you "google" the term, you will...

Study Guide for The Spanish Tragedy

The Spanish Tragedy study guide contains a biography of Thomas Kyd, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Spanish Tragedy
• The Spanish Tragedy Summary
• Character List

Essays for The Spanish Tragedy

The Spanish Tragedy literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Spanish Tragedy.

• Ending in Renaissance Tragedy
• "Just and Sharp Revenge": The Question of Underworld Justice in "The Spanish Tragedy"
• Discuss the function of cross-dressing in Renaissance drama.
• Hieronimo's Transformation in The Spanish Tragedy
• Theater of the Grotesque: The Spanish Tragedy and Foucault

Wikipedia Entries for The Spanish Tragedy

• Introduction