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Thomas Kyd

For other people named Thomas Kidd, seeThomas Kidd (disambiguation).

Thomas Kyd(baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an Englishplaywright,the author ofThe Spanish Tragedy,and one of the most important figures in the development ofElizabethan drama.

Although well known in his own time, Kyd fell into obscurity until 1773 whenThomas Hawkins,an early editor ofThe Spanish Tragedy,discovered thatThomas Heywood,in hisApologie for Actors(1612), attributed the play to Kyd. A hundred years later, scholars in Germany and England began to shed light on his life and work, including the controversial finding that he may have been the author of aHamletplay pre-dating Shakespeare's, which is now known as theUr-Hamlet.

Early life

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Thomas Kyd was the son of Francis and Anna Kyd. There are no records of the day he was born, but he was baptised in the church ofSt Mary Woolnothin the Ward of Langborn, Lombard Street, London on 6 November 1558. The baptismal register at St Mary Woolnoth carries this entry: "Thomas, son of Francis Kydd, Citizen and Writer of the Courte Letter of London". Francis Kydd was ascrivenerand in 1580 was warden of theScriveners' Company.

In October 1565 the young Kyd was enrolled in the newly foundedMerchant Taylors' School,whose headmaster wasRichard Mulcaster.Fellow students includedEdmund SpenserandThomas Lodge.Here, Kyd received a well-rounded education, with the curriculum including Italian, Latin, Greek, music, drama, physical education, and "good manners". There is no evidence that Kyd went on to university. He may have followed in his father's professional footsteps because there are two letters written by him where his handwriting style is similar to that of a scrivener.[1]

Career

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Title page of Kyd'sThe Spanish Tragedy,with a woodcut showing (left) the hung body of Horatio discovered by (centre)Hieronymo;andBel-imperiabeing taken from the scene by ablackfaceLorenzo (right).

Evidence suggests that in the 1580s Kyd became an important playwright, but little is known about his activity.Francis Meresplaced him among "our best for tragedy" and Heywood elsewhere called him "Famous Kyd".Ben Jonsonmentions him in the same breath asChristopher Marlowe(with whom, in London, Kyd at one time shared a room) andJohn Lylyin theShakespeareFirst Folio.

The Spanish Tragedywas probably written in the mid to late 1580s, with its first recorded performance on 23 February 1592 byLord Strange's Men.[2]The earliest surviving edition was printed in 1592, the full title beingThe Spanish Tragedie, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio, and Bel-imperia: with the pittifull death of olde Hieronimo.However, the play was usually known simply as "Hieronimo" after theprotagonist.It was arguably the most popular play of the "Age of Shakespeare" and set new standards in effective plot construction and character development. There were "twenty-nine performances between 1592 and 1597" and "eleven editions between 1592 and 1633", which the historian J. R. Mulryne states is "a tally unequaled by any of the plays of Shakespeare”.[1]In 1602 a version of the play with "additions" was published.Philip Henslowe's diary records payment to Ben Jonson for additions that year, but it is disputed whether the published additions reflect Jonson's work or if they were actually composed for a 1597 revival ofThe Spanish Tragedyalso mentioned by Henslowe.

Other works by Kyd are his translations ofTorquato Tasso'sPadre di Famiglia,published asThe Householder's Philosophy(1588), and ofRobert Garnier'sCornélie(1594), along with the playSoliman and Perseda.Plays disputedly attributed, in whole or in part, to Kyd includeKing Leir,Fair Em,Arden of Favershamand parts of1 Henry VIandEdward III.[3]A play related toThe Spanish TragedycalledThe First Part of Hieronimo(surviving in a quarto of 1605) may be abad quartoormemorial reconstructionof a play by Kyd, or it may be an inferior writer's burlesque ofThe Spanish Tragedyinspired by that play's popularity.[4]Kyd is supposed by some to have been the author of aHamlet,the precursor of the Shakespearean play (see:Ur-Hamlet).

The success of Kyd's plays extended to Europe. Versions ofThe Spanish Tragedywere popular in Germany and theNetherlandsfor generations. The influence of these plays on European drama was largely the reason for the interest in Kyd among German scholars in the nineteenth century.

Later life

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From 1587 to 1593 Kyd was in the service of an unidentified noble, since, after his imprisonment in 1593 (see below), he wrote of having lost "the favours of my Lord, whom I haue servd almost theis vi yeres nowe". Proposed nobles include theEarl of Sussex,[5]theEarl of Pembroke,[6]Lord Strange.[7]andEdward De Vere,17th Earl of Oxford. He may have worked as a secretary, if he did not also write plays. Around 1591Christopher Marlowealso joined this patron's service, and for a while Marlowe and Kyd shared lodgings, and perhaps even ideas.

On 11 May 1593 thePrivy Councilordered the arrest of the authors of "divers lewd and mutinous libels" which had been posted around London. One libel was found on the property of a Dutch Church and contained violent anti-foreigner sentiments and multiple allusions to the works of Marlowe.[8]The next day, Kyd was among those arrested; he would later believe that he had been the victim of an informer.[2]His lodgings were searched and instead of evidence of the "libels" there was found anArianisttract, described by an investigator as "vile heretical conceits denying the eternal deity ofJesus Christfound amongst the papers of Thos. Kydd [sic], prisoner... which he affirmeth he had from C. Marley [sic] ". Historians such asFrederick Boasbelieve that Kyd was tortured brutally to obtain this information.[2]Kyd told authorities the writings found in his possession belonged to Christopher Marlowe, a fellow dramatist and former roommate. Kyd "accused his former roommate of being a blasphemous traitor, anatheistwho believed that Jesus Christ was ahomosexual,"[9]an uninformed confusion over the Arian and earlyGnosticconcept ofhomoousios.Following the accusation, Marlowe was summoned by the Privy Council and, while waiting for a decision on his case, was killed in an incident inDeptfordinvolving known government agents.

Kyd was eventually released but was not accepted back into his lord's service. Believing he was under suspicion of atheism himself, he wrote to theLord Keeper,Sir John Puckering, protesting his innocence, but his efforts to clear his name were apparently fruitless. The last we hear from the playwright is the publication ofCorneliaearly in 1594. In the dedication to theCountess of Sussexhe alludes to the "bitter times and privy broken passions" he had endured. Kyd died later that year at the age of 35, and was buried on 15 August inSt Mary Colechurchin London. In December of that same year, Kyd's mother legally renounced the administration of his estate, probably because it was debt-ridden.[2]

St Mary Colechurch was destroyed in theGreat Fire of Londonin 1666, and not rebuilt.

Works

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The dates of composition are approximate.[10]

References

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  1. ^ab"Kyd, Thomas (bap. 1558, d. 1594), playwright and translator".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15816.Retrieved3 May2023.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  2. ^abcdBoas, Frederick (1901).The Works of Thomas Kyd(2nd ed.). London: Oxford University Press.ISBN979-8713135416.
  3. ^Freebury-Jones, Darren (2022).Shakespeare's tutor: the influence of Thomas Kyd.ISBN978-1-5261-6474-2.OCLC1303076747.
  4. ^Thomas Kyd,The First Part of HieronimoandThe Spanish Tragedy,ed. Andrew S. Cairncross, Regents Renaissance Drama Series, Lincoln, Neb., 1967, p. xiv.
  5. ^Arthur Freeman,Thomas Kyd: Facts and Problems,Oxford, 1967
  6. ^Lukas Erne,Beyond the Spanish Tragedy: A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd,Manchester University Press 2002,ISBN0-7190-6093-1
  7. ^Charles Nicholl,The reckoning: the murder of Christopher Marlowe,University of Chicago Press, 1995,ISBN0-226-58024-5,p. 225
  8. ^Freeman, Arthur (1973)."Marlowe, Kyd, and the Dutch Church Libel".English Literary Renaissance.3(1): 44–52.doi:10.1086/ELRv3n1p44.ISSN0013-8312.JSTOR43446737.S2CID151720064.
  9. ^Gainor, J. Ellen., Stanton B. Garner, and Martin Puchner.The Norton Anthology of Drama.2nd ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009.[ISBN missing]
  10. ^"Beyond 'The Spanish Tragedy': A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd – Département de langue et littérature anglaises – UNIGE".12 June 2015.

Bibliography

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  • Philip Edwards,The Spanish Tragedy,Methuen, 1959, reprinted 1974.ISBN0-416-27920-1.
  • Charles Nicholl,The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe,Vintage, 2002 (revised edition).ISBN0-09-943747-3(especially for the circumstances surrounding Kyd's arrest).
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