The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre: the revenge play or revenge tragedy. It is considered one of the most influential plays of the Renaissance theatre. The play contains several violent murders and personifies Revenge as its own character. The Spanish Tragedy is often considered to be the first mature Elizabethan drama, a claim disputed with Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine, and was parodied by many Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, including Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.
Many elements of The Spanish Tragedy, such as the play-within-a-play used to trap a murderer and a ghost intent on vengeance, appear in Shakespeare's Hamlet. (Thomas Kyd is frequently proposed as the author of the hypothetical Ur-Hamlet that may have been one of Shakespeare's primary sources for Hamlet.)
Performance
Early performances Lord Strange's Men staged a play that the records call Jeronimo on 23 February 1592 at The Rose for Philip Henslowe,J. R. Mulryne, 'Kyd, Thomas (bap. 1558, d. 1594)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 4 Nov 2013 and repeated it sixteen times to 22 January 1593. It is unlikely, however, that the performance in February 1592 was the play's first performance, as Henslowe did not mark it as 'ne' (new). It is unclear whether Jeronimo was The Spanish Tragedy, or The First Part of Hieronimo (printed in 1604), the anonymous "prequel" to Kyd's play. The two plays were staged as pairs (over consecutive performances) in March and May 1597.Erne (2001) p.15
English actors performed the play on tour in Germany in 1592. The Admiral's Men revived Kyd's original on 7 January 1597, and performed it twelve times to 19 July; they staged another performance jointly with Pembroke's Men on 11 October of the same year. The records of Philip Henslowe suggest that the play was on stage again in 1601 and 1602.
The play became a popular hit in Germany and The Netherlands. Playwright Jakob Ayrer produced a translation into German before 1600, which appeared in an anthology of his plays in 1618. Everaert Siceram included scenes in his Dutch translation of Orlando Furioso, published Antwerp, 1615.Erne (2001) p.127
Modern performances The Spanish Tragedy was performed at London's National Theatre, first in 1982 at the Cottesloe Theatre, with Michael Bryant in the role of Hieronimo, directed by Michael Bogdanov. It transferred to the Lyttelton Theatre in 1984.
The Royal Shakespeare Company performed The Spanish Tragedy in May 1997 at the Swan Theatre, directed by Michael Boyd. The cast included Siobhan Redmond as Bel-imperia, Robert Glenister as Lorenzo, Peter Wight as Hieronimo, Jeffry Wickham as the King of Spain. The production later transferred to The Pit at London's Barbican in November 1997.
An amateur production of The Spanish Tragedy was performed 2–6 June 2009 by students from Oxford University, in the second quad of Oriel College, Oxford. Another amateur production was presented by the Hyperion Shakespeare Company 21–30 October 2010 with students from Harvard University in Harvard's New College Theatre. In November 2012, Perchance Theatre in association with Cambridge University's Marlowe Society staged a site-specific production in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. In October/November 2013, the Baron's Men of Austin, TX performed the work in a near-uncut state, with period costumes and effects, at Richard Garriott's Curtain Theatre, a mini replica of the Globe Theatre. Another amateur production was presented by the Experimental Theater Board of Carleton College 27–29 May 2015.
Other professional performances include a modern-dress production staged at the Arcola Theatre in London in October–November 2009, directed by Mitchell Moreno, with Dominic Rowan as Hieronimo, as well as a production in Belle Époque era costume, staged by Theatre Pro Rata in Minneapolis in March 2010, directed by Carin Bratlie.
The play has been produced a number of times on radio by the BBC: 11 October 1953, BBC Third Programme, with Cecil Trouncer as Hieronimo, Denise Bryer as Bel-Imperia and Peter Coke as Lorenzo. 2 March 1969, BBC Radio 3, with John Laurie as Hieronimo, Rosalind Shanks as Bel-Imperia and Anthony Jacobs as Lorenzo. 6 November 1994, BBC Radio 3, with Oliver Cotton as Hieronimo, Kristin Milward as Bel-Imperia and Jonathan Cullen as Lorenzo. This production marked the 400th anniversary of Kyd's death. 12 November 2023, BBC Radio 3, with Robert Glenister as Hieronimo, Joanna Vanderham as Bel-Imperia and Sandy Grierson as Lorenzo.
Publication In the "Induction" to his play Bartholomew Fair (1614), Ben Jonson alludes to The Spanish Tragedy as being "five and twenty or thirty years" old. If taken literally, this would yield a date range of 1584–1589, a range that agrees with what else is known about the play. The exact date of composition is unknown, though it is speculated that it was written sometime between 1583 and 1591. In a review of academic debate on the topic, Lukas Erne summarises the conclusions as pointing to a completion date before 1588, noting that the play makes no reference to the Spanish Armada, and because of possible allusions to the play in Nashe's Preface to Greene's Menaphon from 1589 and The Anatomie of Absurdity from 1588 to 1589.Erne (2001) p. 56 Kyd's biographer J. R. Mulryne, while acknowledging that evidence is scant, concludes that the year 1587 remains the most likely year for completion of the play.
Kyd's play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 6 October 1592 by the bookseller Abel Jeffes. The play was published in an undated quarto, almost certainly before the end of 1592; this first quarto was printed by Edward Allde—and published not by the copyright holder Jeffes, but by another bookseller, Edward White. On 18 December that year, the Stationers Company ruled that both Jeffes and White had broken the guild's rules by printing works that belonged to the other; both men were fined 10 shillings, and the offending books were destroyed so that the first quarto of The Spanish Tragedy survives in only a single copy. Yet the Q1 title page refers to an even earlier edition; this was probably by Jeffes, and no known copy exists.
The popular play was reprinted in 1594. In an apparent compromise between the competing booksellers, the title page of this, the second, quarto credits the edition to "Abell Jeffes, to be sold by Edward White". On 13 August 1599, Jeffes transferred his copyright to William White, who issued the third edition that year. White in turn transferred the copyright to Thomas Pavier on 14 August 1600 and Pavier issued the fourth edition (printed for him by William White) in 1602. This 1602 quarto ("Q4") contains five additions to the preexisting text. Q4 was reprinted in 1610, 1615 (two issues), 1618, 1623 (two issues), and 1633.
Authorship All of the early editions are anonymous. The first indication that the author of the play was Kyd was in 1773 when Thomas Hawkins, the editor of a three-volume play-collection, cited a brief quotation from The Spanish Tragedy in Thomas Heywood's Apology for Actors (1612), which Heywood attributes to "M. Kid".Heywood, Thomas (1841 report). An Apology for Actors in Three Books, pp. 45, 65. F. Shoberl, Jr. Retrieved 4 May 2014. The style of The Spanish Tragedy is considered such a good match with Kyd's style in his other extant play, Cornelia (1593), that scholars and critics have universally recognised Kyd's authorship.Erne (2001) pp 7–8}
In 2013, scholar Douglas Bruster theorised that some awkward wordings in the "additional passages" of the 1602 fourth edition resulted from printers' errors in setting type from the (now lost) original manuscript. Furthermore, after examining the "Hand D" manuscript (widely accepted as in Shakespeare's handwriting) from the play Sir Thomas More, Bruster argued that the speculated printers' errors resulted from reading a manuscript written by someone with Shakespeare's "messy" handwriting, thus bolstering the likelihood that Shakespeare wrote the additional passages.
Characters
Figures in the Frame The ghost of Don Andrea An embodiment of Revenge
Spain The Spanish King Don Cyprian, Duke of Castile, the King's brother Don Lorenzo, the Duke of Castile's son Bel-imperia, the Duke of Castile's daughter Pedringano, Bel-imperia's servant Christophil, Don Lorenzo's servant Don Lorenzo's page boy Don Hieronimo, Knight Marshal of Spain Isabella, his wife Don Horatio, their son A servant to Don Hieronimo A maid to Isabella Don Bazulto, an elderly man General of the Spanish army Three watchmen A deputy A hangman A messenger Three citizens
Portugal The Portuguese Viceroy Prince Balthazar, his son Don Pedro, the Viceroy's brother Alexandro and Villuppo, Portuguese noblemen The Portuguese Ambassador Serberine, Balthazar's serving-man Two noblemen of Portugal Two Portuguese citizens (Portingales)
In Hieronimo's play Soliman, Sultan of Turkey (played by Balthazar) Erasto ("Erastus"), Knight of Rhodes (played by Lorenzo) Bashaw (played by Hieronimo) Perseda (played by Bel-imperia)
Setting The Spanish Tragedy primarily takes place in Spain.
Due to many unknowns surrounding the authorship of The Spanish Tragedy, it is currently unknown whether the play was written before or after the armada in 1588. Scholars believe the play was written before 1588, due to the lack of any mention of the armada.
The play is set against the backdrop of the unification of Spain and Portugal, which was carried out as Philip II of Spain ascended to the throne in Portugal. The battle in which Balthazar is captured before the play starts is one which occurred in the fallout of the annexation.
Despite intense anti-Spain sentiment in England, Kyd's play does not portray Spain as a society particularly bereft of morals or laws. This is exemplified by the Spanish king's treatment of Balthazar as his prisoner: "yet free from bearing any servile yoke, for in our hearing thy deserts were great, and in our sight thyself art gracious" (I.ii.148-150).
While the setting of the play is a result of a notable political conflict, it does not contribute to the violence and revenge that actually takes place directly within the play.
Plot Before the play begins, the Viceroy of Portugal rebelled against Spanish rule. A battle took place in which the Portuguese were defeated and their leader, the Viceroy's son Balthazar, killed the Spanish officer Andrea before being taken captive by the Spanish. Andrea's ghost and the personification Revenge itself are present onstage throughout the entirety of the play and serve as chorus. At the end of each act, Andrea bemoans the series of injustices that have taken place and then Revenge reassures him that those deserving will get their comeuppance. The Ghost of Andrea and Revenge open the play in Act 1 and close the play in Act 5 with descriptions of the Classical underworld. There is also a subplot concerning the enmity of two Portuguese noblemen, one of whom attempts to convince the Viceroy that his rival has murdered the missing Balthazar.