Kyd's traumatic passage to the underworld - The Spanish tragedy and early modern crises

Mike Laura: Kyd's traumatic passage to the underworld - The Spanish tragedy and early modern crises. In: Papers in English and American studies : Tomus XXV. - Distinguished Szeged student papers 2020, (25). pp. 61-87. (2020)

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Symptoms of a cultural trauma are present everywhere in early modern English drama. This paper sets out to explore the complex and ambiguous relationship between a theatre of bloody spectacles and an underlying, fundamental cultural trauma of the post-Reformation religious transformations within the context of an oppressive, paranoid and terrorizing state apparatus. The age of Elizabeth saw an upsurge in the practice of torture and public execution, due to the nervousness of the authorities fearing a Catholic coup. To show how this trauma registers itself in literary writings in general, various histories will be discussed such as Machiavelli’s The Prince and John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Furthermore, it will be maintained, that the gory spectacles of the early modern stage are not simply a catering for the voyeuristic demands of the audiences but, in a paradox way, they also reflect true and thoroughgoing cultural trauma. In the last analysis, Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, one of the most popular and most published plays in the era, will be examined for signs of this cultural trauma, while always keeping in mind that ultimately its author also became victim of state violence. The protagonist in his tragedy will be considered as a voice from the wound which is personal (a wound in the psyche of the individual) and communal (a wound on the body of the contemporary religious society) at the same time – he is a mentally unbalanced father who cannot work himself through the violent death of his son. The investigation of Hieronimo’s mourning based on Sigmund Freud’s analytical procedure promises to yield valuable insights into the traumatic universe of the play. Finally, it will be shown how the multiple layers of witnessing and the intrinsic ambiguities of theatrical mimesis deprive the audience of the comfortable possibility of meaning-making and closure in the last scene of the tragedy: the final outbreak of violence happens in the total absence of coherent meaning, which fact also allows for the final conclusion of this paper.

Mű típusa: Könyv része
Befoglaló folyóirat/kiadvány címe: Papers in English and American studies : Tomus XXV. - Distinguished Szeged student papers 2020
Dátum: 2020
Kötet: 25
ISSN: 0230-2780
ISBN: 978-963-315-428-1
Oldalak: pp. 61-87
Sorozat neve: Acta Universitatis Szegediensis de Attila József nominatae : papers in english and american studies
Nyelv: angol
Közreműködők:
Közreműködés
Név
NEM RÉSZLETEZETT
Kyd Thomas
Kiadó: JATEPress
Kiadás helye: Szeged
Befoglaló mű URL: https://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/86283/
Kulcsszavak: Angol irodalom története - 16. sz., Műelemzés - dráma - angol - 16. sz.
Megjegyzések: Bibliogr.: p. 86-87. és a lábjegyzetekben ; összefoglalás angol nyelven
Szakterület: 06. Bölcsészettudományok
06. Bölcsészettudományok > 06.02. Nyelvek és irodalom
Feltöltés dátuma: 2025. már. 21. 14:20
Utolsó módosítás: 2025. már. 21. 14:20
URI: http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/id/eprint/86798
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