Beyond the Spanish Tragedy: A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780719079498)

Kyd is arguably Shakespeare's most important tragic predecessor. Brilliantly fusing the drama of the academic and popular traditions, Thomas Kyd's plays are of central importance for understanding how the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries came about. Called 'an extraordinary dramatic genius' by T.S. Eliot, Thomas Kyd invented the revenge tragedy genre that culminated in Shakespeare's Hamlet some twelve years later.

In this study, The Spanish Tragedy - the most popular of all plays on the English Renaissance stage - receives the extensive scholarly and critical treatment it deserves, including a full reception and modern stage history. Yet as Erne shows, Thomas Kyd is much more than the author of a single masterpiece. Don Horatio (partly extant in The First Part of Hieronimo), the lost early Hamlet, Soliman and Perseda, and Cornelia all belong to what emerges in this work as a coherent dramatic oeuvre.

This groundbreaking study is now in paperback.

Author: Lukas Erne
ISBN-10: 0719079497
ISBN-13: 9780719079498
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/01/2009
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.71lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.58d