SOURCE: Prosser, Eleanor. “Revenge on the English Stage, 1562-1607.” In Hamlet and Revenge, pp. 36-73. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967.

In the following essay, Prosser examines a vast array of revenge tragedies in an effort to elucidate “the moral response of the Elizabethan audience to revenge itself.”

Although a study of the Elizabethan revenge play normally restricts itself to plays related to the “Kydian formula” as defined by Fredson Bowers, our concern in this chapter is with the moral response of the Elizabethan audience to revenge itself. If we can determine the audience's reaction to specific revenge motifs in any type of play (in a Biblical drama such as David and Bethsabe, a chronicle history such as Edward II, or a comedy such as The Dumb Knight, as well as in a revenge play proper such as The Spanish Tragedy), we should be better prepared to recognize established...