The Revenge Tragedy was very popular all through the Elizabethan period. The motif of taking revenge and bloodshed are the essential components of revenge tragedy. Elizabethan revenge tragedies were directly influenced by Seneca, a notable Roman dramatist.
Features of Senecan Revenge Tragedies
1. A man is murdered and the revenge is the duty of his kins from which they cannot escape.
2. The ghost of the murdered man appears in demand of revenge.
3. Declamatory language is used in Senecan tragedies.
4. Excessive use of sensationalism and sentimentalism.
It can be said that Elizabethan revenge tragedies are the reproductions of Senecan revenge tragedies along with some stock ingredients as swords, poison, duels, murders, insanity etc.
Examples:
Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (1586)
Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (1594)
Shakespeare's Hamlet (1602) is unanimously considered to be the best example in this category.
Key words: macabre incidents
moral decadence
political corruption
Posts
