Series: The Revels Plays Companions Library | Publication Date: February 17, 2009
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.
“Lukas Erne's study of Kyd is remarkable: it engages straightforwardly with this immensely important playwright and presents a great deal that is substantially original and of real significance. Serious students of English Renaissance drama will certainly find this book indispensable, and as an added bonus, it is a pleasure to read.” --Professor Brian Gibbons, General Editor of the New Mermaids
About the Author
Lukas Erne is Professor of English in the Département d'anglais, Université de Genève.
Product Details
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Manchester University Press (February 17, 2009)
