School of English

EN650 Elizabethan Drama

Examine the way in which any two texts are in dialogue with one another.

Revenge, Justice and Vengeance in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

The notion of revenge is no stranger to the Elizabethan period. At a time when legal justice for the general public is almost impossible and praying for your loved ones in purgatory is forbidden; it is no wonder that the popularity of the revenge tragedy was on the increase. It has been argued that The Spanish Tragedy is the true archetypal revenge tragedy. Stating from the beginning the goals and outcomes of revenge. On the other hand Shakespeare’s Hamlet refuses to be archetypal due to the complexities within the character of Hamlet. We as an audience are never entirely sure about his true state of mind because the play provides more questions than answers; is the ghost real? Is Gertrude Involved? What is the nature of Ophelia’s death? It is these fundamental questions which place the audience in the same state of confusion as Hamlet (albeit without the presumed madness.) The same kind of empathy is felt towards Hieronimo; however the difference lies in the notion of certainty. We as an audience are made thoroughly aware that Horatio has been brutally murdered by Lorenzo and Balthazar because we have seen the act on stage and been witness to the dramatic climax. Hamlet differs because the audience is thrown into a world of hearsay, betrayal and grief with the protagonist, neither one nor the other sure of what is or is not truth, which makes it increasingly hard for Hamlet to commit revenge in the same planned way as Hieronimo. However Hamlet’s own self-doubt creates a stronger sense of pathos that transcends time, because the audience recognises that it is human nature to feel anxiety, anger, and betrayal. Even though Hieronimo does create the same extent of pity, the audience may not feel as attached to the aging judge because his vulnerability does not shine through as much as Hamlet, a mere student who is extremely intelligent but does not have the same life experience.

Robert N Watson argues that Shakespeare’s plays seem ‘almost supernaturally capable of speaking to issues that transcend local circumstances and reach fundamental questions of life and death’[1]. This is certainly the case with Hamlet. The notion of revenge and ambition was a rife during the Elizabethan period, although ‘the task of blood revenge was discouraged by Elizabethan Authorities, it may have been stimulated by Elizabethan theology, less directly, but no less forcefully because vengeance was suddenly the only thing mourners could do on behalf of the dead.’[2] Hamlet and Horatio are both very different types of avenger but both would have appealed to an Elizabethan audience who were almost being held captive by restrictions on criminal punishment and religion. However they are timeless because of their psychological characteristics.

Hamlet in particular represents the notion of human error. This is particularly evident in Act 3 Scene 4 when Polonius is slain and Hamlet’s mere reply to Gertrude’s ‘What hast thou done?’[3] Is ‘Nay, I know not.’[4] By this point in the play we are uncertain if Hamlet’s madness is genuine or an act, but this pivotal scene shows not only how reduced Hamlet’s great mind has become but also how strained his relationship with his mother is:

QUEEN GERTRUDE: O, What a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET: A bloody deed- almost as bad, good-mother,
As kill and king and marry with his brother.[5]

The Iambic pentameter here helps portray how the notion of revenge has now deeply resonated within Hamlet. When placed next to the ten syllable line from Gertrude the feminine eleven syllables which Hamlet replies creates an accusatory statement, this almost puts the blame of Polonius’ death on Gertrude. Transferring blame onto another is again a very human quality. It is odd how even though in reality Hamlet has just committed a heartless crime, the audience still feels pitiful towards him.

Kyd creates the same notion of pity but in an entirely different way. At the beginning of Act 2 Scene 5 the audience follow Hieronimo and Isabella’s despair at the loss of Horatio. But empathy is created through the loss of a child not through personal corruption. However what is interesting is how Hieronimo proclaims his revenge:

HIER: Seest thou this handkercher besmeared with
blood?
It shall not from me till I have revenged
Seest thou these wounds that yet are bleeding
fresh?
I’ll not entomb them till I have Revenged
Then I will join amid my discontent,
Till then my sorrow never shall be spent.[6]

The way Hieronimo demands his revenge contrasts with how Hamlet is asked to avenge his father. Hieronimo speaks out to the Elizabethan audience because of the attraction of frustrated victims satisfying their own demand for justice[7]. ‘The rise of both litigation and duelling in the period suggest a renewed urgency for finding ways to redress grievances, kithrough both official and unofficial channels.’ [8] Hieronimo is now placed in the predicament of being against the aristocratic classes, so it is going to be extremely difficult to frame Lorenzo and Balthazar through the correct channels. Whilst Horatio notices this and plots intricately to gain his revenge, Hamlet remains unable to think clearly and ultimately becomes the primary source of the plays tragic end.

Isabella represents an entirely different view to her distraught husband, one that represents unshakable faith in God:

Isabella: The heavens are just. Murder cannot be hid.
Time is the author both of truth and right,
And time will bring this treachery to light[9]

Here, Isabella represents the other side of vengeance; Justice. Whilst her husband plots to avenge his son, Isabella is happy to place her faith in God in order for justice to prevail. However, later on in the play, when it comes to light that Isabella has committed suicide, it contradicts the idea of extreme faith, as suicide is against the will of God. Her suicide not only foreshadows later events but further emphasises the view that those who are passive in terms of acting out their own justice will fail. This resonates in Hamlet, because he spends a great deal of the play deciphering his uncle’s guilt, but prolonging his own vengeance. Tanya Pollard argues that a man preoccupied with revenge will not ‘heal’, but that early modern tragedy uses ‘the same language to argue precisely the opposite’[10] this is evident in Hieronimo, but not in Hamlet, who appears to be psychologically burdened by the idea of active revenge.

Whilst both The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet are associated with the theme of revenge, it can be argued that Hamlet is more concerned with the psychological effects of revenge and justice. However a limitation of approaching Hamlet in this way is that there are issues surrounding cause and effect. Can we as an audience be certain that Hamlet is the way he is because of the death of his father? Or is his behaviour the result of a repressed childhood trauma? If one follows Freud’s Psychodynamic theory, Hamlet’s psychological imbalances lie in the conflict between his ID and Superego. Freud coined these varying levels of consciousness to describe the idea that our deepest, often darkest desires (ID) are embedded deep in our unconscious, along with our superego which is our altruistic conscience. Our conscious Ego acts as a middle-man between the two binaries determining the action to be taken between our super moral and selfish options.

[11]

If this is to be applied to the notion of revenge within the play, then Freud would explain Hamlet’s behaviour in terms of the Oedipus complex. The notion behind this theory being that a son feels an unconscious desire within the ID to overcome his father, in order to have intimate relations with his mother. The evident issue here is that Hamlet’s ID/Ego is disrupted because Claudius has actually performed what he most desires; to murder his father and marry his mother. From a psychodynamic point of view this would be the primary reason for Hamlet wanting revenge against his uncle, stemming from a deeply rooted desire for Gertrude. However Hamlet’s delay in murdering his uncle as displayed in Act 3 Scene 4 (‘now might I do it pat, now a is praying, And now I’ll do’t’[12]), is due to his ability to relate with Claudius. Robert Watson agrees that ‘Hamlet cannot kill Claudius because he identifies with him too much [...] Claudius fulfilled precisely Hamlet’s own oedipal fantasies’[13].

It is difficult to apply the somewhat enigmatic oedipal complex to Hieronimo but there is a psychodynamic explanation to his behaviour. Freud also believed in displacement as a defence mechanism. A defence mechanism to a psychodynamic psychologist is something which is unconsciously put in place to help an individual deal with a traumatic event. Hieronimo becomes so traumatised by his son’s death that instead of mourning he becomes obsessed with the thought of revenge. This becomes apparent when upon finding Horatio’s dismembered body he exclaims: ‘To know the author were some ease of grief, For in revenge my heart would find relief’[14]. Within the next 15 lines Hieronimo mentions the word ‘revenge’ three times, to further emphasise the newly found fixation on vengeance. This is the point in which what would usually be redeemed as a ‘normal’ use of displacement becomes pathological, because the said behaviour is not rational. This idea can also be used to explain Hamlet’s desire for revenge as the loss of a father is deeply traumatic and this is evident in his behaviour and his warped perception of the world.

The ghosts that are present in both plays add to this idea of a supernatural perception. The fact that the spirit in The Spanish Tragedy is named ‘Revenge’ personifies the concept of retribution right from the beginning; there is no air of ambiguity surrounding the spirits intention because it has no direct involvement with the ‘mortal’ characters. This is in contrast to the ghost of Hamlet’s father who connects with Hamlet but also with (although to a lesser degree) Horatio and Marcellus in Act 1 Scene 4. It seems that whilst the characters in The Spanish Tragedy are being controlled and watched by the voyeurs of Don Andrea and Revenge, The characters in Hamlet are part of a more active tragedy with the events set in motion by a ghost which may or may not be sent from hell. Watson further argues that tragedies tend to explore ‘the tragic implications of this discrepancy between what the aspiring mind could imagine and what the mortal body could accomplish’[15]. Is the ghost a figure of imagination from Hamlet? Created as a defence mechanism by his unconscious to help him deal with the loss of his father? When the ghost imparts information to Hamlet he seems to immediately respond:

GHOST: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder
HAMLET: Murder?
GHOST: Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural
HAMLET: Haste, Haste me to know it, that with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge.[16]

The fact that the word ‘unnatural’ is repeated should send some kind of warning that the ghost may be a figment of Hamlets imagination, created as some form of coping mechanism. However Hamlet answers with swift adoration, desperate to know how his father had perished. It is evident from this point onwards that Hamlet will ultimately listen to the ghost, which appears a great deal more threatening than Revenge in The Spanish Tragedy, because we have taken his existence as fact. ‘One dynamic definition of tragedy, derived from Hegal, describes it as a dramatic story in which the protagonist receives imperative but contradictory instructions from two superior forces, and is therefore doomed to destruction by whichever one he or she disobeys’[17] This is certainly the case with Hamlet as he is confronted by the ghost and his own conscience, but it is difficult to apply this to Hieronimo as it seems as if his fate has already been decided by Revenge who is an external puppeteer.

Revenge is heavily predominant in both Hamlet and The Spanish Tragedy. However whilst the motives for revenge and retribution are incredibly similar because both protagonists discussed in this essay are seeking justice for a loved one, they are extraordinarily different. Thomas Kyd writes The Spanish Tragedy in 1587[18], Hamlet was written in 1600[19]. Shakespeare being a contemporary of Kyd uses the elements of the same plot but adds a highly self-conscious aspect to the lead protagonist. Even though Hieronimo is also a self-conscious character, he does not have the same timeless characteristics that are present in Hamlet. Shakespeare portrays a man who is a product of human nature- a young student tormented with the loss of a loved one and his mother’s betrayal. He becomes a figure of apathy because we are involved with him from the start of the play and see the transitions of personal traits that are so relevant to humankind. Hieronimo does not give the audience the same extent of insight, and although he has many of the conventions of a tragic hero and his intricate retribution is successful the audience is not left with the same feeling of pathos. Hamlet and The Spanish Tragedy both discuss the topic of revenge as a typical human reaction, but Hamlet achieves it in a timeless, classic fashion.

Word Count: 2592

Bibliography
Primary Texts

Kyd, Thomas. The Spanish Tragedy; Renaissance Drama: An Anthology of Plays and Entertainments. Ed Arthur F Kinney. Blackwell Publishing, London 2010