SOURCE: Kistner, A. L. and Kistner, M. K. “The Spanish Gypsy.” The Humanities Association 25 (1974): 211-24.

In the following essay, the critics analyze themes of loss of identity in the main plot and subplots of Rowley and Middleton's The Spanish Gypsy.

If each person enters the world with a guiltless soul and an integral identity and through sinning or belying his selfhood by assuming a false identity he loses his original innocence and integrity, then only through repentance, expiation, and reconciliation with any victims of his sin can he regain them. From a tragic point of view the latter portion of this philosophy, repentance, expiation, and rebirth, is impossible. Faustus cannot repent, and once Vindice has assumed the mask of vice, it cannot be removed; like Beatrice-Johanna he becomes the creature of the deed. The tragi-comedy developed around these themes, however, can use the Christian concepts of forgiveness and...