With the newfound flourish in the literary arena, the Elizabethan era is responsible for the rebirth and growth of drama. The seed of this new life of drama began in the medieval period where the Italian and English renaissance started to rediscover their love of theatre and went back to the origin of drama in their Greek and Roman base. The Italians were particularly interested in the approach of Lucius Annaeus Seneca and the English playwright was inspired from the Italian success. Seneca was a part of the Roman court during the time of Nero and when he entered his life of writing, with the end of his political career, most of his writings were inspired from his own life and surroundings. His days of court gave nourishment to his themes of justice, violence, cruelty, hatred, bloodshed, wrath, revenge, manipulation, ego, pride in royalty or blueblood etc. in his plays. Though his plays were initially intended as closet dramas, its success on stage inspired the Italian playwrights and they went one step ahead of Seneca. The Italians and the English tragic writers embraced the concept of showing blood and violence on stage which was avoided by Seneca. Thus Seneca became the inspiration of a new kind of drama- the revenge tragedies of the Elizabethan age. ‘’ No author exercised a wider or deeper influence upon the Elizabethan mind upon the Elizabethan form of tragedy than did Seneca.’’-T.S.Eliot. Playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Shakespeare assumed the elements of Senecan tragedies in their own plays and gave birth to classics like The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet etc.
The Spanish Tragedy is the new age ‘tragedy of blood’ or ‘the revenge tragedy’ that derived its basis from medieval Senecan tragedies. Senecan tragedies strongly sympathize with blood revenge for murder or a serious revenge for jealousy. We find almost all the elements of this medieval style in the Elizabethan drama ‘The Spanish Tragedy’.
‘The tragedy of blood’ or ‘the revenge tragedy’ genre of...