Beyond Reason: Madness in the English Revenge Tragedy

This paper explores the depiction and function of madness on the Renaissance stage, specifically its development as trope of the English revenge tragedy from its Elizabethan conception to its Jacobean advent through a representative engagement of Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. Madness in these plays selectively departs from popular conceptions and archetypal formulas to create an uncertain dramatic space which allows its sufferers to walk moral lines and liminal paths unavailable to the sane. “Madness” is responsible for and a response to vision; where the revenger is driven to the edge of madness by a lapse in morality only visible to him, madness provides a lens to correct the injustice. It is the tool that allows them to escape convention, decorum and even the law to rout a moral cancer, and, in this capacity, is enabling rather than disabling.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Denton, Megan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Joshua Eckhardt

• early modern drama shakespeare kyd webster hamlet spanish tragedy duchess malfi revenge madness
• Arts and Humanities
• English Language and Literature

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/554

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1553