The Spanish Tragedy (New Mermaids)

Reasonable quality.

Loved it

I know it's not amazon's fault, but this is so depressing.I mean, look at the title.So Thomas Kyd was a contemporary of Shakespeare- might well have been his emo half-brother (is it surprising they think he is the original author or hamlet?).Spoiler Alert: everyone dies.At least the notes are helpful

Arrived quickly and is just what I need for my OU course.

very good condition

This tends to be looked at as *the* original Renaissance revenge tragedy that takes its roots from Seneca and other Latin sources, and which kick-starts a dramatic genre which flourishes via Titus Andronicus and Hamlet through to The Revenger's Tragedy, The Changeling and others.This edition offers a helpful critical introduction and notes - the latter especially important if you don't have Latin since Kyd is prone to throwing in great chunks, some of which is glossed, most of which isn't.The play itself is a wonderfully macabre story framed by a ghost and the figure of Revenge who sit on stage throughout watching over the drama that we are watching, while the deaths pile up. Amongst the gore, though, are important debates about a feudal blood-price culture of personal revenge vs. a more social sense of legal justice - and the play questions the efficacy of the latter alongside the ethics of the former.So while there are important matters at stake here, the play is also hugely and almost shockingly enjoyable. It's also fun to spot the way its plots, lines and props get lifted by a sneaky William Shakespeare: the scarf that turns into the handkerchief in Othello, the play-within-a-play which is repeated in Hamlet, Hieronymo's struggles with whether, and how, he can live which re-emerge in Hamlet's 'to be or not to be' speech.It's a bit of a shame that Kyd's play has almost become a series of sources for Shakespeare: this is a good edition which gives back primacy to the drama for its own sake.

In his tragically short life, Thomas Kyd wrote one play that has become a classic. In its day, it was one of the most popular on stage and in print, going through 10 printings in the 40 years after it was written. His language is not as accessible as Shakespeare's, but with careful reading, the attraction of the play to the late Elizabethan audience becomes clear. This was one of the first revenge tragedies. By the end of the play, almost everyone has been killed or committed suicide. There are many plot lines that have echoes in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Students of that play should find it worth their time to discover what is considered by many scholars to be an influence on Mr. W.S.

This version is edited by Andrew Gurr and that in itself is reason enough to have a copy on the shelf. If you need another: it's a damn good play.