The Spanish Tragedy

The "Spanish Tragedy," highly influential and popular in its time, established a new genre in English theatre - the revenge play or tragedy which later became so influential in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. The Spanish Tragedy (1589) occupies a very special place in the history of English Renaissance drama. Hieronimo, Knight-Marshal of Spain during its war with Portugal, fails to obtain justice when his son is murdered for courting Bel-Imperia, the Duke of Castile's daughter, and decides to take justice into his own hands. In a scene replete with meta-theatrical implications, Hieronimo and Bel-Imperia stage a playlet with Portuguese and Spanish nobles as actors, stabbing them with real 'fake' daggers before they kill themselves. "The Spanish Tragedy" was often referenced in works written by other Elizabethan playwrights, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe. Many elements of The Spanish Tragedy, such as the play-within-a-play, appear in Shakespeare's Hamlet.