COL 49 Chapter 4 Starters

[calbert at hslboxmaster.com]

MalignD
> <<There seems to be little in Hamlet, for instance, that Bill didn't
> borrow from Kyd.>>
> 
> Other than quality, brilliance, genius, poetry, modern
> characterization; arguably, the largest, most complex character in the
> history of literature ...

Not so fast, mon ami............from the source you cited 
yesterday.....

"No single play is more important in the development of English 
Renaissance drama than The Spanish Tragedy, yet it is only two 
hundred years since its authorship  was generally recognized.....

He is also widely believed to have been the author of an earlier 
version of Hamlet (sometimes referred to as the Ur-Hamlet) on 
which Shakespeare drew when he came to write his celebrated 
tragedy.......

TO his Senecan stock Kyd drafted a character, Lorenzo, who 
embodied the contemporary interest in Machiavelli (as the 
Elizabethans understood him) and the amoralism associated with 
his ideas. Lorenzo is thus the ancestor of the unscrupulous figure 
whose only goal is success and whose only criterion is 
expediency, though he wears the mask of moral virtue. It is a tribe 
to which belong the most dazzling dramtic creations of the period - 
Flamineo, De Flores, Edmund, and Iago among a host of others.

If Kyd had merely adapted Senecan conventions for the popular 
English stage, he would still have a place in any history of the 
drama, but it would be grossly unjust to imply that The Spanish 
Tragedy is a play whose importance is solely or mainly historical. It 
is one of the most powerful plays of its time, and modern revivals 
have shown that it is still full of life. It draws this life from two 
sources, Kyd's masterly dramatic construction and the richness of 
his dramtic style. In terms of sheer stagecraft, The Spanish 
Tragedy is on of the most successful English plays of any period. 
The entire action is presided over by the ghost seeking vengeance 
and the spirit of revenge itself, giving effects of resonant irony, while 
such scenes as the discovery of Hieronimo of his murdered son's 
body and the climactic moment where the pretend killings of the 
play (the "fitted" masque mentioned by Eliot, cfa) within the play 
erupt into "real life" are unforgettable. Kyd's linguistic virtuosity is 
fullyequal to his constructional skill......."

Giamini Salgado, The Spanish Tragedy (essay)

Now even discounting for mediterranean excess, this seems pretty 
strong stuff for someone most would know only from a footnote, 
wouldn't you agree?


love,
cfa