Elizabethan Revenge in Hamlet

                     Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare that very 
                     closely follows the dramatic conventions of revenge in Elizabethan 
                     theater. All revenge tragedies originally stemmed from the Greeks, who 
                     wrote and performed the first plays. After the Greeks came Seneca who 
                     was very influential to all Elizabethan tragedy writers. Seneca who 
                     was Roman, basically set all of the ideas and the norms for all 
                     revenge play writers in the Renaissance era including William 
                     Shakespeare. The two most famous English revenge tragedies written in 
                     the Elizabethan era were Hamlet, written by Shakespeare and The 
                     Spanish Tragedy, written by Thomas Kyd. These two plays used mostly 
                     all of the Elizabethan conventions for revenge tragedies in their 
                     plays. Hamlet especially incorporated all revenge conventions in one 
                     way or another, which truly made Hamlet a typical revenge play. 
                     Shakespeares Hamlet is one of many heroes of the Elizabethan and 
                     Jacobean stage who finds himself grievously wronged by a powerful 
                     figure, with no recourse to the law, and with a crime against his 
                     family to avenge. 

                             Seneca was among the greatest authors of classical tragedies 
                     and  there was not one educated Elizabethan who was unaware of him or 
                     his plays. There were certain stylistic and different strategically 
                     thought out devices that Elizabethan playwrights including Shakespeare 
                     learned and used from Senecas great tragedies. The five act 
                     structure, the appearance of some kind of ghost, the one line 
                     exchanges known as stichomythia, and Senecas use of long rhetorical 
                     speeches were all later used in tragedies by Elizabethan playwrights. 
                     Some of Senecas ideas were originally taken from the Greeks when the 
                     Romans conquered Greece, and with it they took home many Greek 
                     theatrical ideas. Some of Senecas stories that originated from the 
                     Greeks like Agamemnon and Thyestes which dealt with bloody family 
                     histories and revenge captivated the Elizabethans. Senecas stories 
                     werent really written for performance purposes, so if English 
                     playwrights liked his ideas, they had to figure out a way to make the 
                     story theatrically workable, relevant and exciting to the Elizabethan 
                     audience who were very demanding. Senecas influence formed part of a 
                     developing tradition of tragedies whose plots hinge on political 
                     power, forbidden sexuality, family honor and private revenge. There 
                     was no author who exercised a wider or deeper influence upon the 
                     Elizabethan mind or upon the Elizabethan form of tragedy than did 
                     Seneca. For the dramatists of Renaissance Italy, France and England, 
                     classical tragedy meant only the ten Latin plays of Seneca and not 
                     Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles. Hamlet is certainly not much like 
                     any play of Senecas one can name, but Seneca is undoubtedly one of 
                     the effective ingredients in the emotional charge of Hamlet. Hamlet 
                     without Seneca is inconceivable. 

                             During the time of Elizabethan theater, plays about tragedy 
                     and revenge were very common and a regular convention seemed to be 
                     formed on what aspects should be put into a typical revenge tragedy. 
                     In all revenge tragedies first and foremost, a crime is committed and 
                     for various reasons laws and justice cannot punish the crime so the 
                     individual who is the main character, goes through with the revenge in 
                     spite of everything. The  main character then usually had a period of 
                     doubt , where he tries to decide whether or not to go through with the 
                     revenge, which usually involves tough and complex planning. Other 
                     features that were typical were the appearance of a ghost, to get the 
                     revenger to go through with the deed. The revenger also usually had a 
                     very close relationship with the audience through soliloquies and 
                     asides. The original crime that will eventually be avenged is nearly 
                     always sexual or violent or both. The crime has been committed against 
                     a family member of the revenger.  The revenger places himself outside 
                     the normal moral order of things, and often becomes more isolated as 
                     the play progresses-an isolation which at its most extreme becomes 
                     madness.  The revenge must be the cause of a catastrophe and the 
                     beginning of the revenge must start immediately after the crisis. 
                     After the ghost persuades the revenger to commit his deed, a 
                     hesitation first occurs and then a delay by the avenger before killing 
                     the murderer, and his actual or acted out madness. The revenge must be 
                     taken out by the revenger or his trusted accomplices. The revenger and 
                     his accomplices may also die at the moment of success or even during 
                     the course of revenge.  

                             It should not be assumed that revenge plays parallel the moral 
                     expectations of the Elizabethan audience. Church, State and the 
                     regular morals of people in that age did not accept revenge, instead 
                     they thought that revenge would simply not under any circumstances be 
                     tolerated no matter what the original deed was.  It is repugnant on 
                     theological grounds, since Christian orthodoxy posits a world ordered 
                     by Divine Providence, in which revenge is a sin and a blasphemy, 
                     endangering the soul of the revenger. The revenger by taking law into 
                     his own hands was in turn completely going against the total political 
                     authority of the state. People should therefore never think that 
                     revenge was expected by Elizabethan society. Although they loved to 
                     see it in plays, it was considered sinful and it was utterly 
                     condemned. 

                             The Spanish Tragedy written by Thomas Kyd was an excellent 
                     example of a revenge tragedy. With this play, Elizabethan theater 
                     received its first great revenge tragedy, and because of the success 
                     of this play, the dramatic form had to be imitated. The play was 
                     performed from 1587 to 1589 and it gave people an everlasting 
                     remembrance of the story of a father who avenges the murder of his 
                     son. In this story, a man named Andrea is killed by Balthazar in the 
                     heat of battle. The death was considered by Elizabethan people as a 
                     fair one, therefore a problem occurred when Andreas ghost appeared to 
                     seek vengeance on its killer. Kyd seemed to have used this to parallel 
                     a ghost named Achilles in Senecas play Troades. Andreas ghost comes 
                     and tells his father, Hieronimo that he must seek revenge. Hieronimo 
                     does not know who killed his son but he goes to find out. During his 
                     investigation, he receives a letter saying that Lorenzo killed his 
                     son, but he doubts this so he runs to the king for justice. Hieronimo 
                     importantly secures his legal rights before taking justice into his 
                     own hands. The madness scene comes into effect when Hieronimos wife, 
                     Usable goes mad, and Hieronimo is so stunned that his mind becomes 
                     once again unsettled. Finally Hieronimo decides to go through with the 
                     revenge, so he seeks out to murder Balthazar and Lorenzo, which he 
                     successfully does. Hieronimo becomes a blood thirsty maniac and when 
                     the king calls for his arrest, he commits suicide.

                             As well as the fact that Elizabethan theater had its rules 
                     about how a revenge tragedy had to be, so did Thomas Kyd. He came up 
                     with the Kydian Formula to distinguish revenge tragedies from other 
                     plays. His first point was that the fundamental motive was revenge, 
                     and the revenge is aided by an accomplice who both commit suicide 
                     after the revenge is achieved. The ghost of the slain watches the 
                     revenge on the person who killed him. The revenger goes through 
                     justifiable hesitation before committing to revenge as a solution. 
                     Madness occurs due to the grieve of a loss. Intrigue is used against 
                     and by the revenger.  There is bloody action and many deaths that 
                     occur throughout the entire play. The accomplices on both sides are 
                     killed. The villain is full of villainous devices. The revenge is 
                     accomplished terribly and fittingly. The final point that Thomas Kyd 
                     made about his play was that minor characters are left to deal with 
                     the situation at the end of the play.

                             The Spanish Tragedy follows these rules made by Kyd very 
                     closely, simply because Kyd developed these rules from the play. The 
                     fundamental motive was revenge because that was the central theme of 
                     the play. The ghost of Andrea sees his father kill the men who 
                     murdered Andrea originally. Hieronimo hesitates first because he goes 
                     to the king and then he is faced with Isabellas madness which is 
                     caused by Andreas death. The play is filled with all kinds of bloody 
                     action and many people die throughout the course of the play. The 
                     accomplices in the play also all end up dead. Lorenzo who is the true 
                     villain, is full of all kinds of evil villainous devices. The revenge 
                     works out perfectly, in that both Lorenzo and Balthazar get murdered 
                     in the end by Hieronimo. The minor characters were left to clean up 
                     the mess of all of the deaths that occurred during the play. The 
                     Spanish Tragedy also follows the conventions of Elizabethan theater 
                     very closely. The murder was committed and Hieronimo had to take 
                     justice into his own hands, because true justice just simply wasnt 
                     available. Hieronimo then delays his revenge for many different 
                     reasons that occur in the play. The ghost of Andrea appeared and 
                     guided Hieronimo to the direction of his killer. Also at the end of 
                     the play, both Hieronimo and his accomplices die after they were 
                     successful in committing the revenge.

                             In Hamlet, Shakespeare follows regular convention for a large 
                     part of the play. In the beginning, Shakespeare sets up the scene, 
                     having a ghost on a dark night. Everyone is working and something 
                     strange is happening in Denmark. It is as if Shakespeare is saying 
                     that some kind of foul play has been committed. This sets up for the 
                     major theme in the play which is of course revenge. The ghost appears 
                     to talk to Hamlet. It is quite obvious that the play had a gruesome, 
                     violent death and the sexual aspect of the play was clearly introduced 
                     when Claudius married Hamlets mother Gertrude. The ghost tells Hamlet 
                     that he has been given the role of the person who will take revenge 
                     upon Claudius. Hamlet must now think of how to take revenge on 
                     Claudius, although he doesnt know what to do about it. He ponders his 
                     thoughts for a long period of time, expecting to do the deed 
                     immediately, but instead he drags it on until the end of the play. 
                     Although what was important to note was that all tragic heroes of 
                     plays at that time delayed their actual revenge until the end of the 
                     play. In most revenge plays, the revenger was often anonymous and well 
                     disguised, stalking the enemy about to be killed, but Hamlet started a 
                     battle of wits with Claudius by acting mad and calling it his antic 
                     disposition, although the whole thing was a ploy to get closer to 
                     Claudius to be able to avenge his fathers death more easily. The 
                     tactic was a disadvantage in that it drew all attention upon himself. 
                     More importantly though it was an advantage that his antic 
                     disposition, isolated him from the rest of the court because of the 
                     people not paying attention to what he thought or did because of his 
                     craziness.
                             
                             One important part of all revenge plays is that after the 
                     revenge is finally decided upon, the tragic hero delays the actual 
                     revenge until the end of the play. Hamlets delay of killing Claudius 
                     takes on three distinct stages. Firstly he had to prove that the ghost 
                     was actually telling the truth, and he did this by staging the play 
                     The Mousetrap at court. When Claudius stormed out in rage, Hamlet 
                     knew that he was guilty. The second stage was when Hamlet could have 
                     killed Claudius while he was confessing to god. If Hamlet had done it 
                     here then Claudius would have gone to heaven because he confessed 
                     while Hamlets father was in purgatory because he did not get the 
                     opportunity to confess. So Hamlet therefore decided not to murder 
                     Claudius at this point in the play. The third delay was the fact that 
                     he got side tracked. He accidentally killed Polonius which created a 
                     whole new problem with the fact that Laertes now wanted Hamlet dead. 
                     After he commit this murder he was also sent off and unable to see the 
                     king for another few weeks until he could finally do the job. What 
                     makes Hamlet stand out from many other revenge plays of the period is 
                     not that it rejects the conventions of its genre but that it both 
                     enacts and analyses them. 

                             It can be easily understood that Hamlet very closely follows 
                     the regular conventions for all Elizabethan tragedies. First Hamlet is 
                     faced with the fact that he has to avenge the murder of his father and 
                     since there is no fair justice available, he must take the law into 
                     his own hands. The ghost of his father appears to guide Hamlet to 
                     Claudius and inform Hamlet of the evil that Claudius has committed. 
                     Then Hamlet constantly delays his revenge and always finds a way to 
                     put it off until he finally does it in Act V, Scene 2. Hamlet at the 
                     same time continues to keep a close relationship with the audience 
                     with his seven main soliloquies including the famous, To be, or not 
                     to be...(Act 3 Scene 1). The play also consists of a mad scene where 
                     Ophelia has gone mad because her father Polonius had been killed and 
                     because Hamlet was sent off to England. The sexual aspect of the play 
                     was brought in when Claudius married Gertrude after he had dreadfully 
                     killed Old Hamlet and taken his throne. Hamlet also follows almost 
                     every aspect of Thomas Kyds formula for a revenge tragedy. The only 
                     point that can be argued is that the accomplices on both sides were 
                     not killed because at the end of the play, Horatio was the only one to 
                     survive, although if it wasnt for Hamlet, Horatio would have commit 
                     suicide when he said,  I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Heres 
                     some liquor left.(Act V Scene 2, 346-347). If Horatio had killed 
                     himself, then Hamlet would have followed the Kydian formula as well as 
                     the regular conventions for Elizabethan revenge tragedy.

                             Hamlet is definitely a great example of a typical revenge 
                     tragedy of the Elizabethan theater era. It followed every convention 
                     required to classify it as a revenge play quite perfectly. Hamlet is 
                     definitely one of the greatest revenge stories ever written and it was 
                     all influenced first by Sophocles, Euripides and other Greeks, and 
                     then more importantly by Seneca. Hamlet as well as The Spanish Tragedy 
                     tackled  and conquered all areas that were required for the 
                     consummation of a great revenge tragedy. Revenge although thought to 
                     be unlawful and against the Church was absolutely adored by all 
                     Elizabethan people.  The Elizabethan audience always insisted on 
                     seeing eventual justice, and one who stained his hands with blood had 
                     to pay the penalty. That no revenger, no matter how just, ever wholly 
                     escapes the penalty for shedding blood, even in error. This was also 
                     a very important point that was also dealt with brilliantly by 
                     Shakespeare in finding a way to kill Hamlet justly even though he was 
                     required to kill Claudius. Hamlet was written with the mighty pen of 
                     Shakespeare who once again shows people that he can conjure up any 
                     play and make it one of the greatest of all time. Hamlet was one of 
                     the greatest of all time. 