The Spanish Tragedy

Arranged by: 5th Group

Puspita Tamansari Saragih 1901030108

Veronika MR Silalahi 1901030097
Dwira May Situmorang 1901030095
Novita Forena Simanungkalit 1901030091
Imelda Oppusunggu 1901030105
Nike Manik 1901030112
Widya Ambarita 1901030101

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF HKBP NOMMENSEN PEMATANGSIANTAR
2022
A. Summary of The Spanish Tragedy

The story begins when the Viceroy of Portugal rebelled against Spanish rule and the Portuguese
were defeated in a battle. Their leader, Balthazar, kills Don Andrea, a Spanish officer, and
Balthazar is later captured by the Spanish soldiers. Andrea's ghost wants to avenge the injustice
against him.

In the first half, Lorenzo (the nephew of the king of Spain) and Horatio, Andrea's best
friend, argue over who captured Balthazar but it's clear that Horatio caught him and Lorenzo just
wants credit for that. Bel-imperia, Andrea's lover, mourns Andrea's death because she loved him
even though his family disapproved and he was comforted by Horatio. Horatio and Bel-imperia
fall in love with each other but Bel-imperia, at least in part, is motivated by revenge as she
intends to torture Balthazar who fell in love with her. The king of Spain decided that Balthazar
and Bel-imperia should marry because, clearly, their marriage would help broker peace between
Spain and Portugal.

Lorenzo, Bel-imperia's brother, thinks that Bel-imperia has a new lover (which will
obviously spoil the king's plans) and he bribes his servant, Pedringano, to find out who his new
lover is. He then convinced Balthazar to help him kill Bel-imperia's lover. Horatio's death was
horrific because he wasn't given a chance to fight back. He is ambushed by Lorenzo and
Balthazar and they 'hang him on an arbor' before stabbing him to death. Hieronmo and Isabella,
Horatio's parents, find their son's body still hanging from the arbor and Isabella goes insane.

Lorenzo locked Bel-imperia, but he wrote to Hieronimo, in his own blood, informing him
that Lorenzo and Balthazar were Horatio's killers. Hieronimo tries to legally seek justice by
petitioning the King but Lorenzo convinces the King that Horatio is actually still alive and he
prevents Hieronimo from seeing the King by claiming that the King is 'busy'. Hal pushes
Hieronmio over the edge and he starts babbling incoherently. He, finally, regained his senses
and, together with Bel-imperia, he pretended to make peace with Lorenzo and Balthazar in order
to get close to them. He asks them to join the play, Soliman and Perseda, which he plays to
entertain the court. They agreed and a plan was executed.
 In the play the Bel-imperia part is spoken in French, Hieronimo in Greek, Lorenzo in Latin,
and Balthazar; in Italian. It could be Lorenzo's sentence in Italian and Balthazar's sentence in
Latin. Hieronimo's instructions were not clear.

Hieronimo also gave the players real daggers instead of mock daggers and this caused
Lorenzo and Balthazar to be stabbed to death in front of the King, Viceroy, and Duke (Lorenzo
and Bel-imperia's father). Bel-imperia's character commits suicide in the play. so he died too.
This is a sad ending for such a wonderful character. It was unclear whether Bel-imperia knew or
not that Hieronimo had exchanged the daggers but he agreed to 'accept' and 'hid' Hieronimo's
plan of revenge, whatever the plan was.

After everyone died, Hieronimo revealed behind the murder and then he bit his own tongue
to prevent himself from speaking under torture. He then killed the Duke and then he killed
himself.

The final scene of the play shows the audience that the spirits of Don Andrea and Revenge
are satisfied with the events of the play. Andrea is allowed to punish the guilty party with eternal
torment and Revenge agrees to oversee their 'endless tragedy' and the drama ends.

B. Intrinsic element :

1. Theme of the Spanish tragedy :

- Love and Memory

- Revenge and Justice

- Appearance vs. Reality

- Madness & Fortune

2. Characters :

• Hieronimo- servant to the king, becomes the main protagonist after he finds his son's dead
body.

• Bel-Imperia- daughter of the Duke of Castile, falls in love with Andrea and Horatio.
• Lorenzo- Aids in the murder of Horatio, great at manipulating others.

• Balthazar- Prince of Portugal, kills Horatio and Lorenzo.

• Horatio- Son of Hieronimo, good friend of Andrea.

• Ghost of Andrea- Dead from the beginning, seeks revenge on those who cause him harm.

• Revenge- A spirit that a companies Andrea thought out the play, he speaks of the living as if
they were performing a play for him.

• Isabella-Hieronimo's wife, kills her self which leads to the suicide of Hieronimo.

• The King- The King of Spain, good friend of Hieronimo

• The Viceroy-The King's Portugal counter part, dies very dishonourably.

• Pedringao- Bel-imperia's servant, betrays and gets betrayed

• Serberine- Adis in the murder of Horatio

** - Protagonist : Hieronimo, the Knight-Marshal of Spain

- Antagonists : Lorenzo (primary) and Balthazar (secondary)

3. Plot

Exposition (Initial Situation)

Let the Killing Begin

Don Andrea, a heroic young Spaniard, is killed in a battle against Portuguese forces. Had he
been killed fairly in battle, he would have not passed go on his way to peaceful rest in the
afterlife. But.

His nemesis, Prince Balthazar, used dishonorable means, making his death a murder to be
avenged. So, the King and Queen of Hell decide to send Andrea back to the world of the living
to watch his friends get back at his enemies. But of course one bad deed will lead to another, and
another, and
Conflict

New Love Inspires New Murder

Andrea really had some good reasons to live. Most importantly, he wanted to get back to his
lady, Bel-Imperia. His best friend, Horatio, breaks the bad news to Bel-Imperia who almost
immediately decides that Horatio should be her new lover. This might sound like the conflict, but
it's not—the ghost of Andrea has no problem with Bel-Imperia and Horatio hooking up.

The conflict erupts when Prince Balthazar (the dude who killed Andrea) starts creeping on Bel-
Imperia. This of course infuriates our revenge-minded ghost (and us, too, for that matter).
Balthazar even gets help in his romantic quest from Bel-Imperia's brother, Lorenzo.

Lorenzo is a murderous psycho who uncovers the secret relationship between Horatio and Bel-
Imperia. The major conflict occurs when Lorenzo hires henchmen to kill Horatio. He orders the
murder to pave the way for an arranged marriage between his sister and Balthazar. This conflict
inspires Horatio's father, Hieronimo, to seek revenge against everyone involved in his son's
murder.

Complication

Killing Friends in High Places

The conflict is heightened by the fact that Hieronimo has to get revenge against some of the
highest-ranking dudes in Spain and Portugal. It's an ironic complication because Hieronimo's job
is precisely to exact justice on criminals as the Knight Marshal of Spain.

As he begins to find out that his enemies are tight homies with kings, Hieronimo realizes that he
will have to act covertly and criminally while cautiously planning his bloody killing spree. The
politics of social class and justice will muddy the waters of all his thoughts and actions.

Climax

The Theater of Revenge

Hieronimo finally gets his revenge as his victims unwittingly follow his scripting of their own
doom. And we mean "scripting" in the most literal sense. Because Hieronimo ensnares his
victims by having them play the parts of characters that get murdered in a play. His enemies
agree to act as if they're being murdered while performing in front of the royal court, but
Hieronimo commits real murder under the guise of fiction. Clever, no?

Unfortunately, Bel-Imperia diverts from Hieronimo's script by killing herself in the action of the
play. Hieronimo also wanders from the script by killing a relatively innocent guy. Oh yeah, and
then he bites off his own tongue. Apparently, there are some things a playwright just can't
control. Still, we get a juicy climax to our play in the same moment that Hieronimo's play
climaxes. How's that for hammering the climax into our heads?

Resolution (Denouement)

And the Critics Have Their Say

Keeping with the theatricality of Hieronimo's "final act," the ghost of Don Andrea and Revenge
give a "Rotten Tomatoes" review of the play. They basically give the play two thumbs up. Then
Revenge explains how all the bad guys will go to especially bad places in Hell, while all the
good characters will have much comfier afterlives.

With all the characters given their just desserts, the plot wraps up quite neatly. The philosophical
problems the play presents, however, will ring throughout the halls of eternity. And no, we're not
being dramatic—the halls of eternity are ringing.

4. Background

The Spanish Tragedy Introduction

Kyd penned this bloodbath sometime in the late 1580s (we're not exactly sure when),
ushering in a popular genre that has yet to grow stale: the revenge drama. Some twenty years
later, William Shakespeare would borrow heavily from Kyd's tragedy while writing a little play
called Hamlet (you might've heard about it). The Spanish Tragedy is Kyd's only surviving play,
but you'd be hard pressed to find a more influential work. If most of the cast dies at the end of a
play or movie you're watching, go ahead and thank Kyd.

The Spanish Tragedy tells the story of a young soldier who comes home from war only to be
brutally murdered while chatting his girlfriend up in an otherwise romantic setting. When his
father discovers his son's bloodied body hanging from a tree, he then devotes the rest of his time
finding his son's murderers and executing them in a shockingly theatrical way.

Setting (Time) : Late sixteenth-century

Setting (Place) : The Spanish and Portuguese courts, and the estate of the Spanish King
surrounding his court

5. Language style

Alliteration

Alliteration, the repetition of initial consonants, is another frequently used device. It occurs, for
example, in Hieronimo's speech at the beginning of act 3, scene 7, where he questions where he
can run to with his woes, "woes whose weight hath wearied the earth?" The blustering winds, he
continues, have "Made mountains marsh with spring-tides of my tears, / And broken through the
brazen gates of hell."

6. Message of the drama

No need to bother to take revenge, just forgive every mistake. Because forgiveness is the best
revenge.

C. Extrinsic Elments

The exact date of Thomas Kyd's birth is unknown, but he was baptized on November 6, 1558,
in a church in London. His father, Francis Kyd, was a successful writer, a man who copied
documents. Kyd's father was rich enough to send his son to Merchant Taylors School, which
had a reputation for high academic standards. Kyd entered Merchant Taylors' School when he
was seven years old, in 1565. The poet Edmund Spenser was also a student there at the time.
Kyd may have lived at Merchant Taylors for eight to ten years, although the date of his departure
is not recorded.

After leaving school, Kyd may have apprenticed to his father, although this is uncertain. In
1583, he began writing plays for the actor company known as the Queen's Company. Kyd wrote
for the company until 1587, although none of his plays have survived. In 1587 or 1588, Kyd
entered the service of a master, possibly an earl of Sussex, as secretary or tutor. In 1588, he
published a translation of Tasso's Padre in the Famiglia, under the title Philosophy of the
Household. The Spanish Tragedy, the play in which Kyd's fame lies, was written between 1582
and 1592, probably before 1587. It was the first example of Elizabeth's revenge tragedy and
enjoyed great popularity during Kyd's lifetime and beyond. What other plays Kyd writes is a
matter of guesswork. He may have written Soliman and Perseda, and many scholars suggest that
he wrote an early version of Hamlet, although there are no traces of such plays.

In 1591, Kyd shared his lodging with the playwright Christopher Marlowe. In 1593, Kyd was
arrested and asked if he had a role in writing a pamphlet that incited violence against foreigners
in London, which was blamed for the outbreak of the plague and rising unemployment. There is
no evidence that Kyd did anything wrong; he was suspected only because of his relationship
with Marlowe, who was notorious for his atheism. Marlowe was also arrested but was soon
released (and killed in a tavern brawl twelve days later). Kyd wasn't so lucky in his dealings
with the authorities. Heretical writings are found at his inn, but Kyd claims they belong to
Marlowe. He was subjected to torture during his brief incarceration, but he was not convicted of
any crimes.

Upon his release, Kyd wrote Cornelia, an adaptation of the play by French playwright Robert
Garnier. It was published in 1594. In his dedication, Kyd comments on the bitter times and great
suffering he went through.

Kyd died later that year, at the age of thirty-six. He was buried on August 15, 1594. Thomas
Kyd's brief life is shrouded in obscurity, and the Spanish Tragedy is one of his few works.