The Spanish Tragedy EN302: European Theatre - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Spanish Tragedy

EN302: European TheatreSlide2
Slide3

Published

in 1592 but probably written and first performed in the late 1580s; a play called

Jeronimo

was certainly performed at the Rose theatre in 1592

Generally attributed to Thomas Kyd (1558-94), though there is no contemporary mention of Kyd’s authorship of the play until 1612

Kyd was imprisoned and tortured for possession of heretical papers (which he claimed belonged to his room-mate Christopher Marlowe); he died shortly after his release.

He may have written the first (now lost) play version of

Hamlet

.Slide4

It was a highly

influential

play:

Printed at least 10 times between 1592 and

1613;

Spawned a sequel,

The First Part of

Jeronimo

, in 1592 (printed 1605

);

Performed a near-record 29 times between 1592 and 1597, according to the accounts of the Rose theatre owner Philip

Henslowe;

1602 additions (possibly by Jonson, possibly even Shakespeare) – in which

Hieronimo

really does go

mad;

Easily the most widely-quoted play in subsequent Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.Slide5

It set the mould for subsequent revenge tragedies, including:

shady murders,

ghosts seeking justice,

a corrupt

court,

a revenger seeking

confirmation,

extended plotting

,

disguise

,

real

and feigned madness,

multiple

bloody deaths,

a spectacular

climax;

meta-theatrical elements.Slide6

T

he

Elizabethan stage

The Spanish Tragedy

was written at a key moment in European theatre history, when the communal and religious drama of the Middle Ages was giving way to a new commercial theatre industry.

Michael Bristol:

‘

Theatre occupies a marginal space as well as a marginal time. This is pragmatically true of the earliest Elizabethan playhouses, which were situated outside the formal jurisdiction of the city authorities, although they remained de facto an integral part of the city’s economic activity.’

(1983: 648)Slide7
Slide8

Cutaway of the Rose by William Dudley,

http://shalt.dmu.ac.uk/locations/rose-1587-1604.html

See also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EApTZ1QuoHs

Slide9

The Classical World

A semi-classical setting?

ANDREA

.

When I was slain, my soul descended straight

To pass the flowing stream of Acheron;

But churlish Charon, only boatman there,

Said that my rites of burial not performed,

I might not sit amongst his passengers. (1.1.18-21)

Frequent bursts of Latin, most notably as

Hieronimo

grieves over Horatio’s body.

Numerous allusions to Seneca…Slide10

Seneca (c

. 4 BC

– 65 AD)

Recent translations of Seneca into English (e.g. 1581)

Seneca’s

Thyestes

begins with a

prologue in which a Fury brings the ghost of Tantalus back to the mortal world to observe the events of the play (though here the Fury is punishing rather than appeasing the dead mortal

).

The Spanish Tragedy

also features direct quotations (in Latin) from Seneca’s

Agamemnon

,

Oedipus

and

Troades

.Slide11

Seneca (c

. 4 BC

– 65 AD)

‘

Enter

Hieronimo

with a book in his hand

’(3.13.1

s.d.

) –

the Bible,

or Seneca

?

“

Vindicta

mihi

!” (3.13.1)“Vengeance is mine; I will repay,

saith

the Lord

.” (

Romans

12:19

,

King James Bible

, 1611

)

“

Per

scelus

semper

tutum

est

sceleribus

iter

.”

(3.13.6)

[“The

safest way for crime is always through

crime.”]

This

is borrowed from a line spoken by Clytemnestra in Seneca’s

Agamemnon

(l. 115).Slide12

Revenge

Like a verbal chime throughout the play: around 60 individual uses!

REVENGE

.

Then know, Andrea, that thou art arrived

Where thou shalt see the author of thy death,

Don Balthazar, the prince of

Portingale

,

Deprived of life by Bel-imperia.

Here sit we down to see the mystery,

And serve for Chorus in this tragedy. (1.1.86-91

)

BEL-IMPERIA

.

But how can love find harbour in my breast

Till I revenge the death of my beloved?

Yes, second love shall further my revenge.

I'll love Horatio, my Andrea's friend,

The more to spite the prince that wrought his end. (1.4.64-8)Slide13

Revenge

BALTHASAR

.

Glad, that I know on whom to be revenged;

Sad, that she'll fly me, if I take revenge.

Yet must I take revenge, or die myself,

For love resisted grows impatient. (

2.1.114-17)

HEIRONIMO

.

To know the author were some ease of grief,

For in revenge my heart would find relief. (

2.5.40-1)

HEIRONIMO

.

Behoves thee then,

Hieronimo

, to be revenged!

The plot is laid of dire revenge.

On, then,

Hieronimo

, pursue revenge,

For nothing wants but acting of revenge. (4.3.27-30)Slide14

How did Don Andrea die?

Andrea himself is oblique:

“…

in the late conflict with

Portingale

My valour drew me into danger's mouth,

Till life to death made passage through my wounds

.”

(1.1.15-17

)

The underworld

judges

are unable

to

agree on his fate.

We hear two competing accounts of his death (and might remember that Andrea’s reactions to each will be visible to the audience

)…Slide15

GENERAL.

In

all this turmoil, three long hours and more,

The victory to neither part inclined,

Till Don Andrea, with his brave

lanciers

,

In their main battle made so great a breach

That, half dismayed, the multitude retired;

But

Bathazar

, the

Portingales

' young prince,

Brought rescue, and encouraged them to stay.

Here-hence the fight was eagerly renewed,

And in that conflict was Andrea slain –

Brave man at arms, but weak to Balthazar. (1.2.63-72)

HORATIO.

When both our armies were enjoined in fight,

Your worthy chevalier amidst the

thick’st

,

For glorious cause still aiming at the fairest,

Was at the last by young Don Balthazar

Encountered hand to hand. Their fight was long,

Their hearts were great, their clamours menacing,

Their strength alike, their strokes both dangerous.

But wrathful Nemesis, that wicked power, Envying at Andrea's praise and worth, Cut short his life to end his praise and worth. She, she herself, disguised in armour's mask(As Pallas was before proud Pergamus), Brought in a fresh supply of halberdiers, Which paunched his horse and dinged him to the ground. Then young Don Balthazar with ruthless rage, Taking advantage of his foe's distress, Did finish what his halberdiers begun, And left not, till Andrea's life was done. (1.4.9-26)

How did Don Andrea die?Slide16

Legal justice?

Hieronimo

is ‘Knight Marshal’, an officer in the royal household with judicial functions

HIERONIMO

.

Thus must we toil in other men's extremes,

That know not how to remedy our own,

And do them justice, when unjustly we,

For all our wrongs, can compass no redress. (3.6.1-4)

HIERONIMO

.

I will go plain me to my lord the King,

And cry aloud for justice through the court,

Wearing the flints with these my withered feet,

And either purchase justice by entreats

Or tire them all with my revenging threats. (3.7.69-73)Slide17

Legal justice?

VICEROY

.

They

reck

no laws that meditate revenge. (1.3.48)

Compare Francis Bacon’s famous essay ‘Of

Revenge

’, published some years later:

“Revenge

is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong,

putteth

the law out of office

.” (‘Of Revenge’,

1625)Slide18

Legal justice?

ISABELLA

.

Tell me no more! O monstrous homicides!

Since neither piety nor pity moves

The king to justice or compassion,

I will revenge myself upon this place,

Where thus they murdered my beloved son.

She

cuts down the arbour.

(4.2.1-5)Slide19

Machiavellianism

English revenge tragedy is frequently set in a corrupt court in which legal justice has become impossible; often in Spain or Italy.

Lorenzo

lies to and manipulates not just his enemies but also his

allies.

He is

an early example of what will become a recognisable stage type: the

Machiavel

.

(It’s

notable that

he frequently

speaks in Italian despite his supposedly Spanish

identity.)

LORENZO

.

Thus must we work that will avoid distrust;

Thus must we practise to prevent mishap;

And thus one ill another must expulse. (3.3.105-7)Slide20

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527

)

Italian philosopher whose works, especially

The Prince

(1513), had been translated into English and read widely.

In 1552, for example,

the scholar Roger

Ascham condemned those who ‘with consciences confirmed with

Machiavelle’s

doctrine … think, say or do whatsoever may serve best for profit or pleasure’ (

A Report and Discourse

);

Marlowe’s

The Jew of Malta

has ‘

Machevill

’ deliver a prologue in which he declares ‘religion but a childish toy’ (l. 14) and asserts the primacy of ‘might’ over law (l. 20). Slide21

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527

)

“…those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word. […] But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler […]

A

prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion.”

(

F

rom

Machiavelli,

The Prince

, Chapter 18: ‘Concerning The Way In Which Princes Should Keep Faith’)Slide22

Divine justice?

This seems to be at work in the sub-plots. As he is being bound to the stake in preparation for his execution, the innocent Alexandro says:

ALEXANDRO

.

My guiltless death will be avenged on thee,

On thee,

Villuppo

, that hath

maliced

thus,

Or for thy

meed

hast falsely me accused. (3.1.51-3)

J

ust

in time, the scheming

Villuppo

is exposed by the entrance of the Ambassador.

But which god, if any, is in control here?Slide23

Divine justice?

HIERONIMO.

Down by the dale that flows with purple gore

Standeth

a fiery tower; there sits a judge

Upon a seat of steel and molten brass,

And 'twixt his teeth he holds a firebrand,

That leads onto the lake where hell doth stand.

Away,

Hieronimo

, to him be gone!

He'll do thee justice for Horatio's death. (3.12.7-13

)

HIERONIMO.

Vindicta

mihi

!

Ay, heaven will be revenged of every ill,

Nor will they suffer murder unrepaid.

Then stay,

Hieronimo

, attend their will,

For mortal men may not appoint their time. (3.13.1-5; note move from singular to plural)Slide24

Divine justice?

HIERONIMO

.

O sacred heavens, if this unhallowed deed,

If this inhuman and barbarous attempt,

If this incomparable murder thus

Of mine, but now no more my son,

Shall unrevealed and unrevenged pass,

How should we term your dealings to be just,

If you unjustly deal with those that in your justice trust? (

3.2.5-11)

HIERONIMO

.

Why then, I see that heaven applies our drift,

And all the saints do sit soliciting

For vengeance on those cursed murderers. (4.1.32-4)Slide25

Human agency?

Does Revenge

drive

,

or merely

embody

,

human actions

?

REVENGE

.

Be still, Andrea; ere we go from hence

I'll turn their friendship into fell despite,

Their love to mortal hate, their day to night,

Their hope into despair, their peace to war,

Their joys to pain, their bliss to misery. (1.5.5-9)

REVENGE

.

Content thyself, Andrea; though I sleep,

Yet is my mood soliciting their souls.

Sufficeth

thee that poor

Hieronimo

Cannot forget his son Horatio.

Nor dies Revenge, although he sleep awhile,

For in unquiet, quietness is feigned,

And

slumb'ring is a common worldly wile. (3.15.19-25)Slide26

Human agency?

It is a mortal sign (Bel-imperia’s letter, written in her own blood), and not a supernatural one (though it has the appearance of one), which announces Lorenzo and Balthazar’s guilt.

The play’s speeches emphasise

Hieronimo’s

moments of

decision-making:

HIERONIMO.

This way, or that way? Soft and fair, not so;

For if I hang or kill myself, let's know

Who will revenge Horatio's murder then?

No, no! Fie, no! Pardon me, I'll none of that.

He

flings away the dagger and halter.

(3.12.16-20)

Hieronimo

describes himself at the end in

metatheatrical

terms, both ‘Author and actor in this tragedy’ (4.4.147

).Slide27

We might return to the title page to think about this question more fully: why is this moment in particular depicted?

Video clip, starting

at 2.30:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PdwrQdcs1YSlide28

Until this moment, the play has been intensely patterned (think about the visual and verbal contrasts set up between Horatio and Lorenzo, for example, or the parallels between the Spanish and Portuguese courts); the presence of Revenge may suggest that we are in a pre-ordained, fatalistic universe.

At this moment, though,

Hieronimo

enters the stage looking for an interlocutor, but encounters a drawn-out moment of

anagnorisis

in soliloquy.Slide29

In the satirical play the

Return from Parnassus

(1606), we see this speech enacted by a fictional version of the actor Richard Burbage and a student:

BURBAGE.

I think your voice would serve for

Hieronimo

; observe me how I act it, and then imitate me.

STUDIOSO.

Who calls

Hieronimo

from his naked bed? And &c.

BURBAGE.

You will do well after a while.Slide30

The 1602 additions to

The Spanish Tragedy

themselves commemorate this moment, as

Hieronimo

asks a painter to depict it

:

HIERONIMO.

Well, sir, paint me a

youth,

run through and through with villains' swords, hanging upon this tree. … Then, sir, after some violent noise, bring me forth in my shirt, and my gown under mine arm, with my torch in my hand, and my sword reared up thus; and with these words:

What noise is

this? Who

calls

Hieronimo

?

May it be done?

PAINTER.

Yea, sir.

(

Fourth Addition, ll. 131-45)Slide31

Human agency?

Hieronimo

was clearly the ‘break-out’ character:

the

1602 additions

are

dominated by long

speeches for

him.

Hieronimo’s

speeches are by far the most frequently quoted and parodied ones. See, for example,

Ben Jonson’s

Every Man in his Humour

(1601

):

MATHEO.

Indeed, here are a number of fine speeches in this book: ‘O eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears!’; there's a conceit, ‘fountains fraught with tears’! ‘O life, no life, but lively form of death!’

Is't not excellent? ‘O world, no world, but mass of public wrongs’ – O, God’s me! – ‘Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds’.

Is't

not excellent?

Is't

not simply the best that ever you heard? Ha, how do you like it?

BOBADILLA.

’Tis

good.

In many ways,

Hieronimo

literally takes control of the play, becoming his own ‘author’, and even takes on a life beyond it.Slide32

‘Where words prevail not…?’

HIERONIMO.

But wherefore waste I mine unfruitful words,

When naught but blood will satisfy my woes? (3.7.67-8

)

Hieronimo

singularly fails to communicate the facts of Horatio’s murder to the

King.

His line ‘And to conclude, I will revenge his death!’ seems to be an illogical conclusion to the speech opening

3.13.

Dissembling / false fronts: Lorenzo throughout, and

Hieronimo

chooses to in Act 3:

HIERONIMO.

Thus therefore will I rest me in unrest,

Dissembling quiet in unquietness,

Not seeming that I know their villainies… (3.13.29-31)Slide33

HIERONIMO.

Each one of us must act his part

In unknown languages,

That it may breed the more variety,

As you, my lord, in Latin, I in Greek,

You in Italian; and for because I know

That Bel-imperia hath practised the French,

In courtly French shall all her phrases be.

[…]

BALTHAZAR

.

But this will be a mere confusion,

And hardly shall we all be understood. (4.1.172-81

)

HIERONIMO.  

Now shall I see the fall of Babylon,

Wrought by the heavens in this confusion. (4.1.195-6

)

David

Bevington

notes that the English Bibles of the Renaissance tended to confuse “Babylon” with “Babel” (p. 117

). (

Presumably the play-within-the-play was really performed in English, despite the printed text’s insistence that it was

not.)

The failure of language reaches

its violent climax

in the final scene,

of course, culminating

in the highly symbolic moment when Hieronimo bites out his own tongue.Slide34

What is the appeal of a revenge narrative?

A vicarious

rebellion against social authority?

Blood-lust

?

“…if

you will learn to rebel against princes, to commit treasons […], if you will learn to contemn God and all His laws, to care neither for Heaven nor Hell, and to commit all kind of sin and mischief, you need to go to no other school, for all these good examples may you see painted before your eyes in interludes and plays.” (Philip

Stubbes

,

The

Anatomie

of Abuses

, 1583

)

A moral

warning?

Vengefulness as

hamartia?

“Plays are writ with this aim, and carried with this method, to teach the subjects obedience to their King, to shew the people the untimely ends of such as have moved tumults, commotions, and insurrections […] If we present a Tragedy, we include the fatal and abortive ends of such as commit notorious murders, which is aggravated and acted with all the Art that may be, to terrify men from the like abhorred practises

.” (

Thomas Heywood,

An Apology for Actors

,

1612)

A fantasy

of human agency?

“Revenge

triumphs over

death…” (Francis Bacon, ‘Of Death’, Essays, 1612)Slide35

Metatheatrical revenge

Is it significant that the audience is presented with numerous onstage spectators of revenge tragedy?

Andrea and Revenge

Lorenzo and Balthazar

The court audience of

Soliman

and

Perseda

Gregory

Semenza

:

“…

the play offers multiple fictional counterparts for the real persons involved in its performances, thereby establishing an

identificatory

dynamic similar to that provided by a

mirror” (

Semenza

2010: 154)

There is a kind of demonic humour in

Hieronimo’s

line

“But

Bel-imperia plays

Perseda

well”

(4.4.69), as she, Lorenzo and Balthazar lie dead or dying, and the court remain under the impression that they are watching

fiction.Slide36

How are we positioned in relation to the ending?

Bel-imperia’s suicide?

Castile’s murder?

Then

he makes signs for a knife to mend his pen.

CASTILE

.

O, he would have a knife to mend his pen.

VICEROY

.

Here, and advise thee that thou write the

truth

. (4.4.199-200

)

Castile is punished in the afterlife by vultures permanently tearing at his liver (

4.5.31-2). Is this simply because

he

opposed

Bel-imperia’s engagement to Don Andrea

?

What are we to make of Andrea’s gloating over the ending?

ANDREA

.

Ay, now my hopes have end in their effects,

When blood and sorrow finish my desires:

[…]  Ay, these were spectacles to please my soul. (4.5.1-2, 12)Slide37

References

Bristol,

Michael

D. (1983) ‘Carnival and the Institutions of Theatre in Elizabethan England’,

ELH

, 50: 4,

637-654.

Semenza

, Gregory M

. C. (2010) ‘

The

Spanish Tragedy

and

Metatheatre

’,

in Emma Smith and Garrett J. Sullivan

[eds.]

The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Tragedy, Cambridge University Press, 153-62.