Early Modern Revenge Tragedy

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Revenge plays such as The Spanish Tragedy, The Jew of Malta, Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, and The Revenger’s Tragedy share a fascination for bloody murder and lurid, predatory. But what else do they have in common besides these notorious themes and a certain literary awareness of one another? The writers of Tudor and Jacobean England, we will find, usually took the Roman Seneca as their model, and embraced Seneca’s path of spectacular violation and violence: the five core plays are all haunted by ghosts (the ghosts of both the victims and Revenge itself); driven by secret murder; and complicated by disguise and feigned madness. In addition, we will attend a performance of Macbeth at the Shakespeare Theater, if one of the other plays listed above is not available on a stage in the spring. Another Washington, D.C. theater group, Taffety Punk, will come in to produce an in class workshop. Students are required to write three short papers, participate in a small group presentation, and take two “quizams” over the course of the semester.