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In Our Time

Elizabethan Revenge

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2009

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests Jonathan Bate, Julie Sanders and Janet Clare discuss Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedy. From Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy to Shakespeare's Hamlet, the Elizabethan stage was awash with the bloody business of revenge. Revenge was dramatic, theatrical and hugely popular. It also possessed a fresh psychological depth in the way vengeful minds were portrayed through a new dramatic device: the soliloquy. But these tales of troubled individuals, of family wrongs and the iniquities of power also spoke to an audience for whom the vengeful codes of medieval England were being replaced by Tudor legal systems, by bureaucracy and the demands of the state above those of the individual. Therefore, the heady brew of hatred, madness, violence, evil deeds and righteous anger found on stage reflected the passing of something off stage.Jonathan Bate is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick; Julie Sanders is Professor of English Literature and Drama at the University of Nottingham; Janet Clare is Professor of Renaissance Literature at the University of Hull.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

0:04.7

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

0:08.5

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

0:18.0

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

0:24.6

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

0:29.7

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

0:36.0

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time Podcast.

0:39.0

For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK forward slash radio for

0:45.6

I hope you enjoy the program. Hello in Thomas Kids play the Spanish tragedy a

0:50.8

father seeks redress for the murder of his son he declares revenge on them

0:55.3

that murdered my son then will I rend and tear them thus and thus shivering their

1:01.1

limbs in pieces with my teeth. He's called

1:04.3

ironically and he wasn't alone. From Hamlet to the changeling, the Spanish

1:08.1

tragedy to Titus Andronicus, the Elizabethan and Jacobian stage was a wash

1:12.4

with the bloody business of revenge.

1:15.5

Revenge was dramatic, theatrical and hugely popular, but also it reveals a world in which codes of

1:21.6

medieval vengeance were being replaced by Tudor legal systems

1:25.0

and so the brew of hatred and madness, evil deeds and righteous anger found on stage mirrored and perhaps mourn the passing of something off stage.

1:33.5

With me to discuss Elizabethan Revenge I Julie Sanders, Professor of English Literature and Drama

1:37.8

at the University of Nottingham, Janet Claire, Professor of Renaissance Literature at the University

1:42.4

of Hull, and Jonathan Bates, Professor of Renaissance Literature at the University of Hull, and Jonathan Bates,

1:44.4

Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick.

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