Thomas Kyd

Thomas Kyd ( born November 3, 1558 London, † July 16, 1594 ) was an English playwright and is next to William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe as one of the greatest Elizabethan playwright.

Life

Little is known about Kyds life. His parents Anna and Francis Kyd allowed him a good education at the Merchant Tailor 's School and he should then have been in the service of an aristocrat. 1585 he wrote probably pieces for the theater group " The Queen's Company". From 1591 he lived and worked with Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, and was a friend of John Lyly.

Kyd and Marlowe

Kyds life seems closely linked to Christopher Marlowe. On May 12 1593 he was had been signed in connection with subversive posters (so-called Dutch Church Libels ) that circulated in London and some of Tamburlaine ( the protagonist of the drama " Tamburlaine " of Marlowe ), was arrested. During a search of his apartment in which he had some years previously lived together with Marlowe, the search for the authors of the above posters though not this one, but other fonts were in the frame ( of " vile heretical conceits denying the deity of Jesus Christ. " ) found that massive accused him of " atheism " and the heresy. He was arrested and tortured to extort a confession in Bridewell prison. He tried to deport all the blame on Marlowe, who was, however, came during Kyds prison on May 30, 1593 under obscure circumstances, even to death. ( He was for many years as stabbed in a bar brawl ) The real cause of death Marlowe was first elucidated by the discovery of the original documents of the Coroners Inquest in 1925 by Leslie Hotson in the British National Archives. Kyd was later released, but died about a year later, probably robbed from the effects of torture, impoverished, every saint and in disgrace.

Work

With its manageable work Kyd had significant influence on the literature of his time. Among his works next to the Spanish tragedy, Solimon and Perseda, Cornelia and Ur - Hamlet version are counted. His play The Spanish Tragedy (The Spanish Tragedy, about 1592), a revenge tragedy, became the model for many pieces that were written in this popular genre. Attributed Kyd is the Ur - Hamlet, a non- handed- drama that drew from the traditional Saxo Grammaticus of Amletus saga, which also had a revenge theme and Shakespeare must have served as a source for his Hamlet. The play " Arden of Feversham " is not attributed to him with sufficient certainty.

Swell

  • Albert E. Jack, Thomas Kyd and the judgment of Hamlet, PMLA 1905
  • TW Baldwin, On the Chronology of Thomas Kyd 's plays., Modern Language Notes 1925
  • Howard Baker, Ghosts and Guides: Kyd 's " Spanish Tragedy " and the Medieval Tragedy, Modern Philology 1935
  • Arthur Freeman: Thomas Kyd. Facts and Problems. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1967
  • Peter B. Murray: Thomas Kyd. Twayne Publ, New York 1969
  • Frank R. Ardolino: Apocalypse and Armada in Kyd 's " Spanish Tragedy ". Northeast Missouri State Univ. Press, Kirksville 1995 ( Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, 29) ISBN 0-940474-31- X

References and notes

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