Zachary 1

The Spanish Tragedy through Elizabethan Eyes

Lindsey Zachary

Tensions abound in Thomas Kyds Renaissance revenge drama The Spanish

Tragedy and in the criticism that surrounds this play. Many scholars claim that the
play is inherently subversive, upsetting traditional views of justice, Christianity,
and social order. Kyds play seems to be inherently nihilistic, as central
characters Hieronimo and Revenge claim that there is no justice to be found and
suggest that all that remains is vengeance and death. However, if the play is to be
interpreted as being nihilistic in tone and subversive in regards to Christianity, one
has to ask why it was so incredibly popular in the Protestant English society of the
Elizabethan era. The answer is found by delving into the political, religious, and
judicial practices of the age. I would argue that the Elizabethans viewed the play
in an entirely different manner than modern readers do, and they saw The Spanish
Tragedy as an affirmation of national English prestige and as a satisfying
representation of the downfall of Spain. Due to their anti-Spanish political
perspective, they would have viewed Hieronimos acts of vengeance as an
embodiment, rather than as an inversion, of justice.

Zachary 2
Many modern critics who read The Spanish Tragedy see it as a drama which expresses a
subversive stance towards Christianity and embraces a nihilistic outlook on life. Initially, the
play may not seem to undermine Christian conceptions of God because Kyd chooses to fill his
play with Greco-Roman imagery and deities. However, Gregory M. Colon Semenza emphasizes
the point that although Kyd chooses to use Greco-Roman imagery to represent the cosmos, there
is an implicit presence-in-absence of God in the play (57). Kyds choice of generally
distancing himself from the Christian cosmos by using Greco-Roman imagery actually serves to
make his critique of Christianity broader. He does not specifically bait either Catholics or
Protestants but instead expresses themes of a broader scope that seem to undercut Christianity
and the conception of justice in the heavens as a whole.
Isabella and Hieronimo, the parents of the murdered Horatio, both undergo a progression
from trust that the heavens will provide justice to a conclusion that justice will not be found in
heaven or on earth. They eventually conclude that the only option remaining is to take matters
into their own hands. When Hieronimo and Isabella discover their murdered son in the garden,
Isabella initially expresses her faith by asserting that The heavens are just, murder cannot be
hid: / Time is the author both of truth and right, / And time will bring this treachery to light
(2.5.57-59). However, as the play progresses and Horatios death is still not avenged, Isabella
begins to despair. William M. Hamlin comments that Isabella runs lunatic, a development
suggesting that Christian forbearance counts for little against the ravages of grief and
uncertainty (159). Isabellas initial trust in a just universe is proven false; trust in heaven does
not avail her, and she eventually goes insane, despairs, and commits suicide.
Hieronimo, likewise, pleads to obtain justice from the heavens. He cries out, O sacred
heavens, may it come to pass / That such a monstrous and detested deed . . . Shall thus by this be

Zachary 3
venged or revealed (3.7.45-8). Hieronimo expresses the desire for the murderers of his son to
be discovered and repaid for their hideous crime. He questions and struggles as he seeks for
justice and cannot find it. Although Hieronimo does not directly name God, he questions the
heavens in a way that indirectly addresses God: O sacred heavens! If this unhallowed deed /
Shall unrevealed and unrevenged pass, / How should we term your dealings to be just, / If you
unjustly deal with those that in your justice trust? (3.2.5-11). As time goes on, still Hieronimo
sees no evidence of just dealings in the universe. Finally, Hieronimo says that his tortured soul /
Beats at the windows of the brightest heavens, / Soliciting for justice and revenge: / But

...I

find the place impregnable; and they / Resist my woes and give my words no way (3.7.10-14,
17-18). Even though Hieronimo pleads with the heavens for justice and waits for a response, he
receives no reply. The silence of the heavens seems to subvert the Christian message of a God
who is just and loving, and who listens to the cries of people on earth and responds to their
needs. In Hieronimos universe, God is silent and unresponsive.
The silence from above seems to indicate that there is no hope that the heavens will
provide justice. Any Christian belief in a just God ruling in the universe is undercut by
Hieronimo and Isabellas progression from faith to despair. By the end of The Spanish Tragedy,
the desire for revenge is all that carries Hieronimo forward: Finally, the thesis of alienation is
embraced with conviction . . . The play has driven a wedge between doom and the ideological
supposition that the heavens are just. Hieronimos conclusionan understandable if
precipitous verdictis that the two have no relation (Hamlin 166). Scholars such as Hamlin
have argued that Kyd uses Hieronimos transition from having faith in justice to despairing of
help from the heavens to express a nihilistic message that completely subverts the traditional
Christian faith.

Zachary 4
Furthermore, as Hieronimo stops looking to the heavens for justice and takes revenge into
his own hands, he seems to turn his back on biblical models of forgiveness and grace that
Christians are supposed to embody. As Hieronimo is debating whether to take revenge or leave
justice to the heavens, he exclaims, Vindicta mihi! / Ay, heaven will be revenged of every ill,
Nor will they suffer murder unrepaid (3.8.1-3). Vindicta mihi is translated Vengeance is
mine, and Hieronimo is quoting a piece of Romans 12:19: Dearly beloved, avenge not
yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay,
saith the Lord. However, Hieronimo rejects the idea of leaving vengeance up to God, and in
the next moment urges himself Strike, and strike home, where wrong is offered thee (3.8.7).
Hieronimo chooses to take vengeance into his own hands and to try to annihilate his sons
murderers. He cries, Revenge on them that murdered my son. / Then will I rent and tear them
thus and thus, / Shivering their limbs in pieces with my teeth (3.8.121-23). Hieronimos threats
of violent revenge stand in contrast to Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount: Ye have heard
that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye
resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on they right cheek, turn to him the other also
(Matthew 5:38-39). Instead of obeying the Christian injunction to turn the other cheek,
Hieronimo embraces the eye for eye, tooth for tooth mentality. His actions and outlook on life
can be interpreted as subversive rejections of Christian values of forgiveness.
Another character who reinforces a rejection of Christian values is Pendringano,
Lorenzos servant who murders another vassal at Lorenzos command and is caught by the
authorities. Pendringano is sentenced to death by hanging, but he does not believe he will die
because Lorenzo has sent a page to Pendringano, instructing the page: Bid him not doubt of his
delivery, / Tell him his pardon is already signd. . . / Show him this box, tell him his pardons

Zachary 5
int (3.4.66-67, 72). However, Lorenzo is deceiving his servant and offering him a false hope,
for the box is empty. Robert N. Watson draws a parallel between Lorenzo and Pendringano and
God and Christian believers. Watson writes:
Pendringano dies wondering why his lord has forsaken him, haunted by that
lords false promise that faith will disarm mortality. The stratagem by which
Lorenzo keeps Pendringano silent about their conspiracy right up to the instant of
that hanging bears disquieting resemblances to the entire Christian strategy of
consolation. Like an Elizabethan clergyman, Lorenzos messenger-boy is not
exactly required to lie about these glad tidings, only to take their substance and
truth on pure faith, and to urge Pendringano to do the same. (67)
The page promises Pendringano that the pardon is in the box, when in reality it is an empty shell,
a false promise of life and salvation from the death sentence. Pendringano dies having believed
in this false hope. This event chillingly echoes the Gospel message and suggests that hope of
redemption is futile.
As The Spanish Tragedy draws to a close, it appears that Hieronimo has no sense of hope,
either. Even when Hieronimo attains the goal of vengeance which he has been pursuing since
the murder of his son, he is not satisfied or put at peace in any way. Hieronimos prosecution of
revenge offers no enduring ease, no tranquility or calm (Hamlin 162). He has lived only to
attain revenge, and once he has achieved his goal, all that is left is death. This nihilistic
conclusion suggests that there is no meaningful existence on earth to be had.
Although it is possible to find nihilistic elements in The Spanish Tragedy and even to see
ways that it subverts Christianity or portrays an absence of justice, I would argue that the English
audience did not interpret the play in this way. Fredson Thayer Bowers inaccurately asserts that

Zachary 6
from the very first, revenge in Elizabethan tragedy had been associated in some form or other
with the tacit disapproval of the audience . . . Hieronimos course of revenge with its bloody
conclusion must have alienated the audience to the point where it looked upon him as a villain
(184). Others disagree entirely. Scholars such as Steven Justice assert that in the eyes of the
English audience, Hieronimo would have been a hero, and the downfall of members of the
Spanish court would seem only to be just and fitting. Justice writes, The political polemics of
the 1580s . . . show that the judgment of the play falls less on Hieronimo than on a kind of
society, which is the Spanish society (272). The judgment and focus of the Elizabethan
audience would have been on the Spanish society, not on Hieronimo. They would view
Hieronimo as a just arbiter, bringing a much-deserved judgment on a corrupt culture. As Frank
Ardolino writes, The Spanish Tragedy is dominated by a providential ethos of justice coming to
fruition and, concomitantly, by the historical movement toward the inevitable victory of
Protestant England over Catholic Spain (83). It is essential to consider the political and
religious tensions which were prevalent in Elizabethan England during the time Kyd wrote The
Spanish Tragedy. These tensions provide an explanation for the incredible popularity of the play
and should cause modern-day critics to reconsider the ways in which they, and the Renaissance
audience of old, have interpreted this play.
The Spanish Tragedy was incredibly popular in its day; dozens of performances were
given in the years after its release in 1592. Lukas Erne cites a fact which demonstrates the plays
vast appeal: Between 1592 and 1633, The Spanish Tragedy passed through at least eleven
editions, more than any play by Shakespeare (95). The play was so popular in great part because
it was performed during the era when Spain was a great threat to England. As Justice writes, it is
essential to remember that Spain was much on English minds during the 1580s when the play

Zachary 7
was written (274). Spain was a major world power during this era, and it represented both a
political and religious threat to Protestant England. The English were striving for predominance
and hoping for Spains downfall. The Spanish Tragedy portrays a satisfying image of the
destruction of the Spanish ruling powers through Hieronimos revenge.
The Elizabethans perceived political and religious views in a closely interrelated way.
They were taught to think that Spain represented a double threat of spiritual darkness and
political tyranny (Justice 274). Many political pamphlets were published at this time, such as
Robert Greenes booklet titled The Spanish Masquerado. He wrote that Spain, the malicious
enemie, seekes, puffed up by ambition and couetousnesse, to subuert our Religion, and make a
conquest of our Island (Greene qtd. in Justice 274). Ardolino explains that Spain represented
both a political and religious threat, and many Protestants looked to the Bible to interpret the
current political situation: The symbolic visions in the books of Daniel and Revelation were
interpreted by sixteenth-century Protestant commentators as signs that the fall of Catholic
Babylon, that is, Rome and Spain, was imminent (40). Also, as Ian McAdam notes, there was a
pervasive outlook in English society that the English were a people singled out by God for a
special purpose, an elect nation called upon to play a particular part in the designs of providence
(40). Therefore, as the Elizabethan audience watched the Spanish court fall into chaos, they
would also to some extent see this as a foreshadowing of Protestant predominance over
Catholicism. Subtle critiques of Christianity which appear throughout the play would most likely
not be as noticeable to them as the predominant theme of Englands political and religious
ascendancy over Spain. They viewed Kyds play as a promise of the triumph of the English
nation and English Protestantism. They were pleased to watch as Spain fell into ruin.

Zachary 8
The first image of Spanish defeat and English victory appears near the very beginning of
The Spanish Tragedy as Hieronimo puts on a silent play for the king of Spain and the Portuguese
ambassador. Ardolino makes the profound observation that the nationalistic themes are
represented symbolically in the plays-within-the-play devised by Hieronimo in the first and last
acts; these celebrate the passage of power from Spain to England (10). It is significant to note
that the metadramatic performance at the beginning of the play and the climactic final
metadrama both symbolize the downfall of Spain and are both planned and produced by
Hieronimo, the Knight Marshal of Spain. From the very beginning, the sympathies of the English
audience lean in favor of Hieronimo, although he is himself a Spaniard. His favorable opinion in
their eyes will only increase as the play progresses. In the first metadramatic performance of Act
One, Hieronimo directs three knights with three shields to face three kings, take their crowns,
and make them captive. He then explains to his audiencespecifically the King of Spain and
the ambassador from Portugalthat the first two knights portray English victories over Portugal,
while the third represents an English defeat of Spain. The final victory over Spain is especially
significant and enjoyable to both the Elizabethan audience and to the Portuguese ambassador,
who tells the king, This is an argument for our viceroy, / That Spain may not insult for her
success, / Since English warriors likewise conquered Spain, / And made them bow their knees to
Albion (1.4.168-171). Hieronimo has successfully pleased his audience, both within and
without the play, by reminding them of English political ascendancy.
Even the King of Spain is still pleased with Hieronimo, for the Knight Marshall has
simply mentioned a defeat of the past, while Spain is currently enjoying victory and
predominance. This, in turn, dissatisfies a member of the metadramatic audiencethe ghost of
Andreawho complains to Revenge that nothing is going wrong for his Spanish enemies. The

Zachary 9
Elizabethan audience, as well, though content with the recollection of previous victories, would
be looking to see trouble unfold for Spain in the present action of the play. Revenge promises
Andreaand indirectly the English audience as wellthat ere we go from hence, / Ill turn
their friendship into fell despite, / Their love to mortal hate, their day to night, / Their hope into
despair, their peace to war, / Their joys to pain, their bliss to misery (1.5.5-10). This can be
interpreted as a strongly nihilistic statement, but viewed from the perspective of the Elizabethan
audience, it is extremely promising, for Revenge is forecasting despair, pain, and misery for the
Spanish protagonists. The English spectators would be delighted at this prospect.
Hieronimo becomes the central character through which Kyd brings about the downfall
of Spain and explores issues of justice and revenge. As the play progresses, Hieronimos words
and actions would cause him to rise in favor in the eyes of the Elizabethan audience more and
more, until he becomes the hero-figure. Ardolino highlights Hieronimos importance: Kyd
joins the . . . motif of interlocked acts of revenge with the idea of the justified revenger,
Hieronimo, who kills his sons murderers, topples Babylon/Spain, and thus serves as a Vindicta
Dei ushering in the English golden age under Elizabeth which is celebrated in [this] play (90).
Although critics such as Hamlin and Bowers have tried to argue that Hieronimo is a corrupt
character who sins against God by despairing of the hope of justice and by taking revenge into
his own hands, the Renaissance audience would not have viewed him in this way. Instead, they
would have seen the Knight Marshall as the hero who actually asserts justice by bringing about
the downfall of Spain. Many facets of the Elizabethan political and judicial system help to
illustrate this perspective.
Hieronimo, as Knight Marshal to the king, is a character the English could identify with
and approve of. As C. L. Barber writes, The knight marshal was charged in the English court

Zachary 10
with maintaining the peace . . . Hieronimo has a very clearly defined social position that makes
him an appropriate figure for a middle-class London audience to identify with. He is not a
member of the high nobility but a high civil servant (135). Hieronimo would be a positive
figure in the eyes of the Elizabethans; he is not related to the Spanish or Portuguese royalty as
are Lorenzo, Balthazar, and even Bel-Imperia. Hieronimo may initially serve the Spanish king,
but he soon turns his loyalties against the King as he fails to receive a hearing or to obtain
justice. The audience can accept and approve of him because he has taken up the very cause
they support: the destruction of the Spanish court.
Hieronimo chooses to take justice into his own hands only after he tries to obtain it from
the King of Spain. As he is trying to decide what to do about Horatios murder, Hieronimo
declares, I will go plain me to my lord the king, / And cry aloud for justice through the court
(3.7.69-70). However, although Hieronimo goes to the court and appeals for justice, O justice,
justice, gentle king! (3.12.63), he is silenced by Lorenzo and ignored by the king. Semenza
insightfully comments that the fact that the king is deaf to Hieronimos cries for justice and is
so easily fooled by Lorenzos intervention in Hieronimos suit highlights the kings failure as a
judge; the figurehead of state power and appointed protector of his citizens fails to deliver
justice (58). Hieronimos inability to obtain justice from the king serves as another critique of
Spain, suggesting that the Spanish court is corrupt and unreliable. Their monarch is revealed to
be hopelessly out of touch with his subjects, grossly neglectful of his proper cares (Hamlin
160). Hieronimo realizes that he will not receive any aid or understanding from his own ruler,
and he proceeds to take the dispensation of justice into his own hands.
It is important to note that Hieronimo still maintains a strong sense of justice even as he
pursues revenge. He stops looking to the heavens or the earth for justice, and he takes matters

Zachary 11
into his own hands. However, he is not acting out of a sense of nihilism. Hieronimo perceives
himself as acting as a dispenser of justice. He declares that the time has come for just revenge
against the murderers (3.13.143). Hieronimo has recognized that since this system has failed,
he is the only one who can carry out just revenge (3.13.143) and see that the wrongdoers are
properly punished. Steven Justice elaborates on this idea:
Hieronimo declares plainly Spains justice: For blood with blood shall, while I sit
as judge, / Be satisfied, and the law dischargd (3.6.35-36). An eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, and blood for blood: Hieronimo gives the unbending principle of
exchange and revenge its proper name, the law. This is not Hieronimo the
revenger, but Hieronimo the knight marshal, the judge, that is speaking. (274)
Even though Hieronimo has been unable to attain justice from the heavens or from the king, he
continues to guide his own course of actions according to his inherent conception of justice and
what should be done according to the law.
Not only is Hieronimo acting rightly according to his own standards of justice, but the
Elizabethans would view Hieronimos actions as right as well. The audience would not view the
Knight Marshalls personal dispensation of justice as inappropriate because he acts as would be
expected according to the judicial practices of the time. Semenza explains that Hieronimos
decision to take justice into his own hands can be condoned by the English audience because
Kyds first crucial move is to make the Spaniard, Hieronimo, seek legal justice before pursuing
revenge, fulfilling a civil obligation consistent with the laws of Elizabethan England (58).
Therefore, according to the Elizabethan law system, Hieronimo acts appropriately because he
first appeals to the authorities. Once they fail him, he takes matters into his own hands in order
to see justice done. Ronald Broude explains that the tradition of self-government enjoyed

Zachary 12
continued currency during the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Official records mention blood
feuds in England quite late in the sixteenth century (46). When the state failed to dispense
justice, which frequently happened during this era in England, it was not unusual for people to
deal with blood-feuds on their own (Broude 44). Jordi Coral Escol writes that although the
practice of blood revenge was fading, this major socio-legal change was not yet fully in place
when revenge plays emerged (61). When Kyd wrote his revenge play, this practice of pursuing
personal vengeance was still an accepted part of Elizabethan judicial practice. The audiences
watching Hieronimo would not have condemned his actions. Arguments by critics such as
Bowers that Hieronimos course of revenge with its bloody conclusion must have alienated the
audience to the point where it looked upon him as a villain (184) are revealed as inaccurate
when one takes time to consider the judicial practices of the Elizabethan era.
A knowledge of Elizabethan judicial practices in regards to public executions also helps
the reader to understand the way in which the audience would respond to The Spanish Tragedy
and interpret Hieronimos actions as he chooses to take revenge by means of a dramatic
production. During this time sentences were severe, and executions, publicly attended, were
regarded as conveniently combining instruction and delight (Broude 50). Crimes were harshly
and publicly punished in order to discourage wrongdoing in a society in which the government
was struggling to attain judicial order. As Molly Smith explains, these public executions were
meant to serve as severe cautionary examples to the English people and to strongly discourage
them from criminal activities (218). However, the executions also became a form of
entertainment for the Elizabethans. People would pay for seating the day of a hanging, and they
could even hire rooms in houses overlooking the scene (218). Hawkers sold fruits and pies, and
ballads and pamphlets detailed the various crimes committed by the man being hanged (218).

Zachary 13
Executions, like dramas, were festive events for the English people, in a grim and foreboding
fashion.
Smith makes a connection between executions and theater, between the scaffold and the
stage. She notes that the famous Triple Tree, the first permanent structure for hangings in
London, was erected at Tyburn in 1571, during the same decade which saw the construction of
the first public theater (Smith 218). The English people came to view both of the public
executions and theatrical performances as forms of entertainment. Smith suggests that the
spectacular success of Kyds play might be attributed in part to the authors ingenious
transference of the spectacle of public execution with all its ambiguities from the socio-political
to the cultural world (229). Kyd would have been quite aware of the popularity of public
executions, and he therefore integrates such spectacles into his drama, knowing that this is what
the audience wants to see. Kyd writes trial scenes such as the hanging of Pendringano into his
play, and dramatically concludes with Hieronimos play-within-a-play in which the actorsand
even a spectatormeet their deaths.
Kyd artfully uses the play-within-a-play to provide the English spectators with a
spectacle which draws as near to real executions as possible. Within the reality of the play, three
out of four of the actors in the metadramaLorenzo, Balthazar, and Bel-Imperiaactually die.
The audience of the Spanish court initially believes that their deaths are all part of the
performance, but to their horror they discover that these deaths are real events. Through the
mechanism of this metadramatic performance, Kyd allows the Elizabethan audience to watch a
grisly parade of fatalities which comes as close to being actual deaths as possible. Kyd
deliberately weakens the frames that separated spectators from the spectacle (Smith 217). By
using the play-within-a-play, Kyd breaks down the distinction between art and reality, and the

Zachary 14
Elizabethan audience would actually be delighted by this. The nearer a play drew to the
spectacle of a real execution, the better. The Elizabethans would wholeheartedly agree with
Andrea when he proclaims at the end of the play, Ay, these were spectacles to please my soul
(4.5.12).
The Renaissance audience would be pleased not only by the spectacle of death, but by the
political and social implications of the deaths of several key Spanish figures. The king of Spain,
who has no heirs of his own, loses both his nephew and niece, and then Hieronimo murders the
Kings brother, the Duke of Castile, as well. The Duke has never wronged Hieronimo, and
critics have interpreted the Knight Marshals murder of the Duke as a symbol of the complete
breakdown of justice and order. Even if Hieronimo had cause within the bounds of justice to
murder Lorenzo, the Duke of Castile does not seem to be deserving of death. However,
Ardolino places the Dukes death within the political context of the era, arguing that
Hieronimos act of revenge is endowed with a historical necessity that raises his personal
vengeance to the level of nationalistic retribution (11).

The Elizabethan audience would have

perceived Hieronimo as the arbiter of judgment upon Spain. Even Hieronimos murder of the
Duke of Castile, when viewed through the lens of the political situation, can be seen as a just
action. S. F. Johnson explains: By killing not only the Kings nephew but also his brother,
Hieronimo has created in Spain a situation like that of Elizabethan England: the nation has an
aging sovereign, but that sovereign has no direct heir, and the question of succession is cause for
real anxiety (S.F. Johnson qtd. in McAdam 40). When viewed in this light, Hieronimos
murder of the Duke of Castile is actually an acceptable and ultimately just action, for it is part of
the judgment upon the Spanish nation, which is then left entirely without heirs.

Zachary 15
The King of Spain himself recognizes the terrible position in which Hieronimos actions
have left him. He exclaims, What age hath ever heard such monstrous deeds? / My brother, and
the whole succeeding hope / That Spain expected after my decease! (4.4.202-04). When the
King refers to the whole succeeding hope / That Spain expected (4.4.203-04), he is mostly
likely speaking of Lorenzo, Bel-Imperia, and Balthazar, who are lying dead before him. Earlier
the King had promised that if Bel-Imperia married Balthazar of Portugal, and if by Balthazar
she have a son, / He shall enjoy the kingdom after us (2.3. 20-21). Now not only are BelImperia and Balthazar murdered, but the other potential rulersthe Kings brother and son
have been annihilated as well. Spain is left without anyone to rule the realm when the king dies.
Hieronimo has succeeded in obtaining vengeance and has left Spain in total devastation in the
process. This is a deeply satisfying conclusion for members of an Elizabethan audience.
Readers and critics of The Spanish Tragedy can learn to view the play in a whole new
light by considering the political, religious, and judicial tensions which abounded in Elizabethan
England. Themes and events which appear to be subversive and nihilistic are instead proved to
be affirmations of national English prestige and representations of Spains downfall. The central
figure, Hieronimo, acts as a just arbiter, bringing a much-deserved judgment on Englands
greatest enemy, Spain.

Zachary 16

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Nauert, Jr. Vol. 29. Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc., 1995.
Barber, C. L. Creating Elizabethan Tragedy: The Theater of Marlowe and Kyd. Ed. Richard P.
Wheeler. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Bowers, Fredson Thayer. Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy: 1587-1642. Princeton: Princeton
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Broude, Ronald. Revenge and Revenge Tragedy in Renaissance England. Renaissance
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Erne, Lukas. Beyond The Spanish Tragedy: A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd. Manchester:
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Zachary 17
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