Church, State and the regular morals of people in that age did not accept revenge, 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. Although they loved to see it in plays, it was considered sinful and it was utterly condemned.
Formula for a revenge Tragedy
The five act structure.
The appearance of some kind of ghost to get the revenger to go through with the deed.
The one line exchanges known as stichomythia.
Long rhetorical speeches.
Political power.
Forbidden sexuality.
Family honour.
Private revenge.
At the extreme, Madness occurs due to the grieve of a loss.
A crime is committed and 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.
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.
Revenge Tragedies
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Summary
Story of a son who avenges the murder of his father.
Hamlet Snr is killed by Claudius
Hamlet Snr’s ghost comes and tells his son, Hamlet that he must seek revenge.
Hamlet during a confrontation with his mother accidentally kills Polonius, thinking it was Claudius.
Polonius’ daughter, Ophelia goes mad
Hamlet escapes from being sent away to England in time for Ophelia’s funeral.
Laertes, Polonius’ son, and Hamlet duel.
Claudius, aware of Hamlets intentions, drops poision in Hamlets drink during the duel, which Gertrude (Hamlets mother) drinks.
The swords that Hamlet and Laertes battle with are tipped with poison, they are both posioned.
Claudius gets killed by Hamlet when it is revealed that he was the one that posioned the drink.
Hamlet dies.
Hamlet’s 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 Hamlet’s 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.
Hamlet at the same time continues to keep a close relationship with the audience with his soliloquies including the famous, To be, or not to be...(Act 3 Scene 1)
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 Kyd’s 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 wasn’t for Hamlet, Horatio would have commit suicide. If Horatio had killed himself, then Hamlet would have followed the Kydian formula as well as the regular conventions for Elizabethan revenge tragedy.
Hamlet was all influenced first by Sophocles, Euripides and other Greeks, and then more importantly by Seneca.
The Spanish Tragedy - Kyd
Story of a father who avenges the murder of his son.
Andrea is killed by Balthazar.
Andrea’s ghost comes and tells his father, Hieronimo that he must seek revenge.
Hieronimo’s wife, Usable goes mad
Hieronimo decides to go through with the revenge, so he seeks out to murder Balthazar and Lorenzo
Hieronimo becomes a blood thirsty maniac and when the king calls for his arrest, he commits suicide.