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Revenge Tragedy is a form of European drama in which the protagonist is called to right a wrong done to him (historically, rarely her) or a member of his family in the absence of means of legal redress. Revenge is a staple element of drama in general, from the Oresteia to Alan Ayckbourn\'s The Revenger\'s Comedies, but Revenge Tragedy as a specific form is particularly associated with the love and duty tragedies of Corneille, Calderón and Lope de Vega, and with English Renaissance drama. In English Revenge Tragedy the ingredients often include a heady mixture of ghosts, skulls, macabre deaths, madness, poisoning and political, social, physical and metaphysical corruption. Hamlet is the best-known of revenge tragedies. Tragedy of Blood is a term used as virtually synonymous with Revenge Tragedy. TRG SS
Further reading Fredson Bowers, Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy; , Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism. |
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