Back More
Salem Press

Table of Contents

Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed

The Spanish Tragedy

by Thomas Kyd

1586

Drama

Tragedy

A Spanish nobleman, Hieronymo, seeks revenge for the murder of his only son; thwarted by the ruthlesness and courtly power of his adversaries, he feigns madness and successfully plots their deaths.

Bel-Imperia, niece of Spain's king, is loved both by Horatio, a war hero, and by the captured Portuguese prince, Balthazar. Her brother Lorenzo aids Balthazar and together they murder Horatio. The murdered man's father Hieronymo seeks revenge; he must first identify the murderers, then use guile to trap them. Distracted by grief, Hieronymo pretends madness to hide his bloody intent.

Finally Hieronymo arranges a play to entertain the visiting Portuguese king; it is a short tragedy in which the actors are his enemies and the murders are not pretended but are real. As their fathers watch and applaud, Lorenzo and Balthazar are killed and Bel-Imperia kills herself; Hieronymo then gloats over his revenge before biting out his tongue and stabbing himself.

Kyd's highly popular play established on the Elizabethan stage the revenge tragedy, a genre which included William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Kyd introduced many of the stock features of the type: classical quotations and allusions, allegorical characters and ghosts, rhetorical verse style, play-within-the-play, dumb show, real and feigned madness, and a bloody ending.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Kyd, Thomas. "The Spanish Tragedy." Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed, edited by Editors of Salem Press, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=6CR_0519.
APA 7th
Kyd, T. (2015). The Spanish Tragedy. In E. Salem Press (Ed.), Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Kyd, Thomas. "The Spanish Tragedy." Edited by Editors of Salem Press. Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.