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Five Revenge Tragedies KYD, SHAKESPEARE, MARSTON, CHETTLE, MIDDLETON Five Revenge Tragedies The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet (1603), Antonio’s Revenge, The Tragedy of Hoffman, The Revenger’s Tragedy Edited and with an Introduction by EMMA SMITH PENGUIN BOOKS Contents Chronology Playwrights Introduction Further Reading Note on the Texts FIVE REVENGE TRAGEDIES Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1603) John Marston, Antonio’s Revenge Henry Chettle, The Tragedy of Hoffman Thomas Middleton, The Revenger’s Tragedy Appendix: Hamlet (or Hamlets) PENGUIN CLASSICS FIVE REVENGE TRAGEDIES EMMA SMITH is Fellow and Tutor in English at Hertford College, Oxford. She has published widely on Shakespeare and on early modern drama, particularly on the plays in print and in performance. She is co-editor of The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England and is working on a book on the Shakespeare First Folio. Chronology Dates of performance, usually conjectural, are taken from Alfred Harbage’s Annals of English Drama 975–1700, rev. Sylvia Stoler Wagonheim (1989); ‘c.’ indicates an approximate date; ‘?’ indicates conjectural information. Revenge tragedies T heatrical background Historical background 1567 First purpose-built theatre in London Attacks on Protestants in St 1572 Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris Publication of Seneca his Ten 1581 Tragedies First English colony in America, 1584 Roanoke, founded by Ralegh Execution of Mary Queen of 1587 Scots 1588 Failure of Spanish Armada c. 1590 Marlowe’s Dr Faustus (Admiral’s Men) Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy performed 1592 (Strange’s Men at the Rose) Theatres closed due to plague 1593 Murder of Marlowe Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus Tyrone’s rebellion in Ireland 1594 Chamberlain’s Men founded began Nine Years’ War Death of Kyd Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 1596 Riots against high food prices (Chamberlain’s Men) Failure of second Spanish 1597 Armada Opening of the Globe Theatre by Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men Bishops’ Ban orders satires to be publicly burned 1599 Revival of boys’ companies Earl of Essex mounts Beginning of ‘Wars of the Theatres’, (unsuccessful) expedition to quell particularly involving Jonson, Marston and Irish rebellion Dekker Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge 1600 (Children at St Paul’s) Shakespeare’s Hamlet c. 1600 (Chamberlain’s Men) Jonson paid for additions to The Earl of Essex’s rebellion: he is 1601 Spanish Tragedy executed for treason Chettle’s Tragedy of Hoffman 1602 (Admiral’s Men) Publication of The Spanish 1602 Tragedy with additions Lord Chamberlain’s Men become King’s Death of Queen Elizabeth; 1603 Men accession of King James I Patent granted for indoor theatre at 1604 Peace with Spain Blackfriars Jonson’s first court masque Middleton’s The Revenger’s Gunpowder plot to blow up 1605 Tragedy (King’s Men) Parliament Shakespeare’s King Lear (King’s Men) First settlement at Jamestown, 1607 Virginia Chapman’s The Revenge of Bussy 1610 D’Ambois (Children of Whitefriars) Tourneur, The Atheist’s Tragedy (? 1611 King’s Men) 1612 Death of Prince Henry Webster, The Duchess of Malfi Globe Theatre burns down during 1613 (King’s Men) performance of Shakespeare’s All is True Hope Theatre built on Bankside for plays and bear-baiting 1614 Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair performed at Hope (Lady Elizabeth’s Men) 1616 Death of Shakespeare Jonson’s Folio of his plays and poems Middleton, Women Beware Pilgrim Fathers set out for 1620 Women (King’s Men) America on the Mayflower Shakespeare’s collected works published 1623 in Folio Death of James I; accession of 1625 Charles I Playwrights Thomas Kyd (1558–94), The Spanish Tragedy Kyd was the son of a London scrivener and attended Merchant Taylors’ School. There is no record of his having attended university. His only other attested literary composition is a translation of the tragedy Cornelia from the French (published in 1594), although critics have suggested that he wrote the play Soliman and Perseda, sharing its name with Hieronimo’s playlet, and an earlier, lost version of Hamlet, the so-called Ur-Hamlet. He shared lodgings with fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe, and was imprisoned when atheistical papers, which Kyd attributed to Marlowe, were found there. The date of composition of The Spanish Tragedy is uncertain – perhaps as early as 1587, since it does not mention the Spanish Armada of the following year – and it is first recorded on stage in February 1592 when Lord Strange’s Men played at the Rose Theatre. A further twenty-eight performances are recorded in theatre proprietor Philip Henslowe’s accounts between 1592 and 1597, making it an unprecedented success; a comic prequel was commissioned called The First Part of Jeronimo (published in 1605), and Ben Jonson was paid to write additional passages to the original play in 1601. The play’s popularity is corroborated by the large number of printed editions (eleven between 1592 and 1633) and an even larger body of allusions, parodies and references in contemporary literature. The language, plot and stagecraft of The Spanish Tragedy had a profound effect on the early modern theatre, including on the other plays printed in this volume. It has had some notable modern revivals, including the National Theatre, London, directed by Michael Bogdanov (1982), the Shakespeare Center in New York, directed by Ron Daley (1986), and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, directed by Michael Boyd (1997). John Marston (1576–1634), Antonio’s Revenge Marston was born in Oxfordshire, and educated at Brasenose College and at the Middle Temple, where his father was a prominent lawyer. His early literary works include fashionable Ovidian love poetry and satires, which fell foul of the Bishops’ Ban on satire in 1599. His dramatic works for the Children at St Paul’s, a successful children’s company, include Antonio and Mellida (1600), part one of Antonio’s Revenge (1600). Later Marston wrote for the Children of the Blackfriars, including The Malcontent (1604) and The Dutch Courtesan (1604), and he collaborated with his rival Jonson and George Chapman on Eastward Ho (1605). By the end of the decade he was ordained a priest and withdrew from theatrical life. Antonio’s Revenge was printed in 1602, and its chronology in relation to that of Hamlet, with which it clearly shares a good deal, is contested. It has never had a professional stage revival since Elizabethan times. William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Hamlet (1603) Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and he had moved to London and begun a career as an actor and playwright by the beginning of the 1590s. He was a sharer (part-owner) in the Chamberlain’s Men from 1594, and wrote exclusively for the company (later named the King’s Men) until his retirement in around 1611. By the time of Hamlet, written around 1600 and first published in 1603, he had written in a range of genres from romantic comedy to narrative poetry. Hamlet is often seen to mark a transition from the comedies and histories of the 1590s towards the more tragic plays of the new century. The earliest printed text (1603) is the one used in this edition. It was followed in 1604 by a second, much longer version of the play, and in Shakespeare’s posthumously printed collected dramatic works, the Folio of 1623, by a third version (see Appendix). Disparaged by bibliographers as a corrupted version of Shakespeare’s intentions, Hamlet (1603) has gradually gained more acceptance, and has had a particular impact in the theatre, where its unfamiliar take on a sometimes over-familiar play has been highly successful: the Nottingham Playhouse, directed by Andrew McKinnon (1983), the Orange Tree in Richmond, directed by Sam Walters (1985), the Oregon Shakespeare Festival directed by Barry Kraft (1994), and as the two-handed play Kupenga Kwa Hamlet (The Madness of Hamlet), directed by Arne Pohlmeier for Two Gents Productions on UK tour (2010). Henry Chettle (died between 1603 and 1607), The Tragedy of Hoffman Much about Henry Chettle’s life is unknown, including his dates of birth and death. Initially trained as a printer, he was a prolific playwright working, almost always in collaboration with other writers, for Philip Henslowe at the Admiral’s Men throughout the 1590s, although little of his work reached print. The Tragedy of Hoffman, or The Revenge for a Father seems to be Chettle’s attempt to rework the popular Hamlet themes for the Chamberlain’s Men’s great rivals, probably in 1602. It was not published until 1631, when it was described ‘as it hath bin diuers times acted with great applause, at the Phenix in Druery-lane’; there is no modern stage history although a semi-staged reading, directed in Oxford by Elisabeth Dutton under the auspices of the Malone Society in 2010, is recorded online [via http://bit.ly/hoffman2010]. Thomas Middleton (1580–1627), The Revenger’s Tragedy Middleton was a Londoner who attended Queen’s College, Oxford, but seems to have preferred writing to study, leaving without a degree and publishing poetry and satire before turning to drama and comic pamphlets. His extensive corpus of plays ranges across genres, from city comedy to Italianate tragedy, from political satire to Lord Mayors’ pageants; he collaborated with Shakespeare on the satirical Timon of Athens and with other writers, including Thomas Dekker and William Rowley; and he wrote for a number of different theatre companies, including, for The Revenger’s Tragedy, the King’s Men, performed 1605. His work has been published in Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works (ed. Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino, 2007). Middleton’s authorship of The Revenger’s Tragedy has only recently been accepted; anonymous editions were printed without authorial attribution in 1607 and 1608.
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