SOME COMMON TRAITS SHARED BY ENGLISH RENAISSANCE REVENGE TRAGEDIES

Abstract

This paper analyzes the origin of the revenge tragedies and the influence of the
Roman playwright Seneca on English renaissance tragedies. Furthermore, it will offer a short review
on how revenge was perceived in Elizabethan England and with what kind of notions the Elizabethans
associated revenge. In addition, this paper will analyze more than a dozen of common traits that
English renaissance tragedies share. One of the goals is to establish whether one can speak of some
kind of a “common pattern” that, Thomas Kyd, William Shakespeare and possibly other authors used
when they endeavored to create these enduringly relevant examples of revenge tragedies.