Origins of English Revenge Tragedy

Book excerpt: Investigates the figures and materials of English tragedyKey FeaturesEstablishes a new approach to the relationship between historical performance and printed literatureComplicates the popular concept of metatheatreOffers boldly original readings of important English tragedies like Hamlet and The Spanish TragedyShows how our encounter with difficulty in the reading of revenge plays can be equivalent to an imaginative confrontation with the contradictions of early modern theatrical actionCharting a new course between performance studies and literary criticism, this book explores how recognition of the dramatic person is involved in theatrical materiality. It shows how the moral difficulty of revenge in plays like The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet and The Duchess of Malfi is inseparable from the difficulty of discerning human shapes in the theatre and on the page. Intervening in a wide range of current debates within early modern studies, Oppitz-Trotman argues that the origins of English tragic drama cannot be understood without considering how the common player appears in it.