Doing Kyd ─ Essays on the Spanish Tragedy

Doing Kyd approaches The Spanish Tragedy and its author as being at the heart of heated social, political and theatrical life in the early modern period. The novelty of the collection is three-fold. It 'does Kyd' in the broadest sense: in wide-ranging essays, contributors look at the play's immediate impact and its legacy; at textual and contextual reception; at stage productions; at issues from genre to gender; at editing - not just for the page but also for the stage and screen. It 'does justice' to Kyd in that it explores what, to date, has remained less trodden territory: the stage life and afterlife of The Spanish Tragedy - on the sixteenth-century stage and in subsequent performance in England and abroad, finishing with the play's most recent production in 2013. Finally, it 'undoes Kyd' as the book's contributors revisit their own encounters with the play and propose new and exciting interpretive approaches. For lecturers and students of early modern drama, this volume works as a historical and critical companion to recent editions of the play, such as Arden (2013). It provides invaluable insiders' accounts for editors and performance historians with particular interest in non-Shakespeare drama. Last but not least, it is of interest to dramaturges and translators of early modern drama, at a time of renewed and reviewed interest in the period and its canon. Interdisciplinary in approach and accessible in style, the volume provides knowledge of the play and a detailed handbook that will serve teachers and students alike.

Contributors include Philip Edwards, editor of the play, whose 1959 edition established Kyd as a key dramatist and the principles of editing non-Shakespeare Renaissance drama. The latest editors of the play, Simon Barker and Jesus Tronch, discuss editing The Spanish Tragedy in the twenty-first century. Jonathan Bate places Kyd's work in the context of the genre of revenge tragedy and the opening of theatres in England and Clara Calvo, Frank Ardolino, Ton Hoenselaars and Helmut Helmer discuss the play in the wider early modern European context. Performance scholars Tony Howard and Carol Chillington Rutter cover the stage history of the play by juxtaposing early modern and modern performance accounts.

Nicoleta Cinpoes is Senior Lecturer in English - Shakespeare at the University of Worcester