Doing Kyd

Essays on The Spanish Tragedy

Edited by Nicoleta Cinpoes

Publication date:

08 January 2016

Length of book:

256 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

216x138mm

ISBN-13: 9780719083822

Doing Kyd reads Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, the box-office and print success of its time, as the play that established the revenge genre in England and served as a ‘pattern and precedent’ for the golden generation of early modern playwrights, from Marlowe and Shakespeare to Middleton, Webster and Ford. Interdisciplinary in approach and accessible in style, this collection is crucial in two respects: firstly, it has a wide spectrum, addressing readers with interests in the play from its early impact as the first sixteenth-century revenge tragedy, to its afterlife in print, on the stage, in screen adaptation and bibliographical studies. Secondly, the collection appears at a time when Kyd and his play are back in the spotlight, through renewed critical interest, several new stage productions between 2009 and 2013, and its firm presence in higher-education curriculum for English and drama.

Foreword – Nicoleta Cinpoes
Introduction: Supernatural structures in Kyd and Shakespeare – Philip Edwards
Part I: ‘Vindicta mihi’
1. Enacting revenge – Jonathan Bate
2. Vindicating revenge – Evghenii Musica
3. Gendering revenge – Kristine Steenbergh
Part II: The Spanish Tragedy in print
4. ‘Undoing Kyd’: the texts of The Spanish Tragedy – Simon Barker
5. Editing The Spanish Tragedy – Jesús Tronch
Part III: ‘Chronicles of Spain’ or Tales of Albion?
6. How Spanish is The Spanish Tragedy? Dynastic policy and colonial expansion in revenge tragedy – Clara Calvo
7. Kyd’s Use of Antonio Pérez’ Las Relaciones in The Spanish Tragedy – Frank Ardolino
8. The Spanish Tragedy and its continental contexts – Ton Hoenselaars and Helmer Helmers
Part IV: Doing Kyd
9. Staging Babel: The Spanish Tragedy in performance – Tony Howard
10. Hieronimo still mad: why adapt The Spanish Tragedy today? – Tod Davies
Part V: Thomas Kyd bibliography 1993–2013 – Nicoleta Cinpoes
Afterword: ‘What is a play without a woman in it?’ – Carol Chillington Rutter
Contributors
Index

‘Thomas Kyd’s oft-taught revenge play The Spanish Tragedy engages with issues resonant in our time: authoritarianism, economic and social inequality, globalization, and the seeming impossibility of worldly justice. Though this collection emerged from a 2006 workshop at the University of Warwick and seems to have had a long gestation, its publication is well-timed for the current political moment.’
Early Theatre 20.1, Marianne Montgomery, East Carolina University

‘This valuable compendium, which revisits the critical reception of a landmark play and confirms its relevance for modern-day audiences, concludes with Cinpoes¸’s comprehensive bibliography of Kyd studies from 1993 to 2013 as well as an index.’
Dana E. Aspinall, Alma College, Cahiers Elisabethains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies XX (X)