Thomas Kyd - Wikipedia Thomas Kyd From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search For other people named Thomas Kidd, see Thomas Kidd (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Thomas Kyd" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) 16th-century English dramatist Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. Although well known in his own time, Kyd fell into obscurity until 1773 when Thomas Hawkins, an early editor of The Spanish Tragedy, discovered that Kyd was named as its author by Thomas Heywood in his Apologie for Actors (1612). 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 a Hamlet play pre-dating Shakespeare's, which is now known as the Ur-Hamlet. Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Later life 4 Works 5 References 5.1 Bibliography 6 External links Early life[edit] 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 of St Mary Woolnoth in 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 a scrivener and in 1580 was warden of the Scriveners' Company. In October 1565 the young Kyd was enrolled in the newly founded Merchant Taylors' School, whose headmaster was Richard Mulcaster. Fellow students included Edmund Spenser and Thomas Lodge. Here, Kyd received a well-rounded education, thanks to Mulcaster's progressive ideas. Apart from Latin and Greek, the curriculum included 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 and his writing style is similar to that of a scrivener. Career[edit] Title page of Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, with a woodcut showing (left) the hung body of Horatio discovered by (centre) Hieronymo; and Bel-imperia being taken from the scene by a blackface Lorenzo (right). Evidence suggests that in the 1580s Kyd became an important playwright, but little is known about his activity. Francis Meres placed him among "our best for tragedy" and Heywood elsewhere called him "Famous Kyd". Ben Jonson mentions him in the same breath as Christopher Marlowe (with whom, in London, Kyd at one time shared a room) and John Lyly in the Shakespeare First Folio. The Spanish Tragedie was probably written in the mid to late 1580s. The earliest surviving edition was printed in 1592; the full title being, The 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 the protagonist. It was arguably the most popular play of the "Age of Shakespeare" and set new standards in effective plot construction and character development. 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 of The Spanish Tragedy also mentioned by Henslowe. Other works by Kyd are his translations of Torquato Tasso's Padre di Famiglia, published as The Householder's Philosophy (1588); and Robert Garnier's Cornélie (1594). Plays attributed in whole or in part to Kyd include Soliman and Perseda, King Leir, Fair Em, Arden of Faversham and Edward III. A play related to The Spanish Tragedy called The First Part of Hieronimo (surviving in a quarto of 1605) may be a bad quarto or memorial reconstruction of a play by Kyd, or it may be an inferior writer's burlesque of The Spanish Tragedy inspired by that play's popularity.[1] Kyd is more generally accepted to have been the author of a Hamlet, the precursor of the Shakespearean play (see: Ur-Hamlet). The success of Kyd's plays extended to Europe. Versions of The Spanish Tragedy and his Hamlet were popular in Germany and the Netherlands for 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[edit] 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 the Earl of Sussex,[2] the Earl of Pembroke,[3] Lord Strange.[4] and Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. He may have worked as a secretary, if he did not also write plays. Around 1591 Christopher Marlowe also joined this patron's service, and for a while Marlowe and Kyd shared lodgings, and perhaps even ideas. On 11 May 1593 the Privy Council ordered the arrest of the authors of "divers lewd and mutinous libels" which had been posted around London. The next day, Kyd was among those arrested; he would later believe that he had been the victim of an informer. His lodgings were searched and instead of evidence of the "libels" there was found an Arianist tract, described by an investigator as "vile heretical conceits denying the eternal deity of Jesus Christ found amongst the papers of Thos. Kydd (sic), prisoner ... which he affirmeth he had from C. Marley (sic)". It is believed that Kyd was tortured brutally to obtain this information. 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, an atheist who believed that Jesus Christ was a homosexual,”[5] an uninformed confusion over the Arian and Early Gnostic concept of homoousios (Ancient Greek: ὁμοούσιος). Unfortunately, Kyd was with Marlowe at the wrong place at the wrong time. Marlowe was summoned by the Privy Council after these events, and, while waiting for a decision on his case, was killed in an incident in Deptford involving 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 the Lord 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 of Cornelia early in 1594. In the dedication to the Countess of Sussex he 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 in St Mary Colechurch in London. In December of that same year, Kyd's mother legally renounced the administration of his estate, probably because it was debt-ridden. St Mary Colechurch was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and not rebuilt. Thus Thomas Kyd's grave was lost to posterity. Works[edit] The dates of composition are approximate.[6] Don Horatio (partially extant in The First Part of Hieronimo, c. 1586) The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1587) The Householder's Philosophy (translation, 1588) Fair Em (attributed, c. 1590) Arden of Faversham (attributed, 1592) Soliman and Perseda (attributed, c. 1593) Cornelia (translation of Robert Garnier, 1594) King Leir (attributed, 1594) References[edit] ^ Thomas Kyd, The First Part of Hieronimo and The Spanish Tragedy, ed. Andrew S. Cairncross, Regents Renaissance Drama Series, Lincoln, Neb., 1967, p. xiv. ^ Arthur Freeman, Thomas Kyd: Facts and Problems, Oxford, 1967 ^ Lukas Erne, Beyond the Spanish Tragedy: A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd, Manchester University Press 2002, ISBN 0-7190-6093-1 ^ Charles Nicholl, The reckoning: the murder of Christopher Marlowe, University Of Chicago Press, 1995, ISBN 0-226-58024-5, p. 225 ^ Gainor, J. Ellen., Stanton B. Garner, and Martin Puchner. The Norton Anthology of Drama. Second ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009. Print. ^ https://www.unige.ch/lettres/angle/en/collaborateurs/modernearly/erne/publications/books/beyond-the-spanish-tragedy-a-study-of-the-works-of-thomas-kyd/ Bibliography[edit] Philip Edwards, The Spanish Tragedy, Methuen, 1959, reprinted 1974. ISBN 0-416-27920-1. Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, Vintage, 2002 (revised edition). ISBN 0-09-943747-3 (especially for the circumstances surrounding Kyd's arrest). External links[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Thomas Kyd Wikisource has original works written by or about: Thomas Kyd Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Kyd. Thomas Kyd at the Lumniarum website Works by Thomas Kyd at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Thomas Kyd at Internet Archive Works by Thomas Kyd at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) *The Spanish Tragedie Full text of the play The Spanish Tragedy at the Wayback Machine (archived 1 April 2009) Full text of the play, modern spelling The Spanish Tragedy Shorter version of the play for a modern audience Thomas Kyd and The Spanish Tragedy at the Wayback Machine (archived 19 May 2005) (University of West Alabama) Perverse justice in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, by John Nettles (University of Georgia) Authority control BNE: XX991015 BNF: cb12378305w (data) GND: 11856837X ISNI: 0000 0001 0883 5393 LCCN: n50058277 NKC: kup19950000054736 NLA: 35286332 NLI: 000412743 NLK: KAC200605142 NTA: 069724563 PLWABN: 9810649376805606 SELIBR: 69228 SNAC: w6k37fgf SUDOC: 032829620 Trove: 898011 VIAF: 29614087 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n50058277 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Kyd&oldid=1002295362" Categories: 1558 births 1594 deaths English Renaissance dramatists People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood 16th-century English writers 16th-century male writers 16th-century English dramatists and playwrights English male dramatists and playwrights University Wits Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from April 2019 All articles needing additional references Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use British English from November 2013 Use dmy dates from November 2013 Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text Commons category link is on Wikidata Articles with Project Gutenberg links Articles with Internet Archive links Articles with LibriVox links Webarchive template wayback links Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Languages Afrikaans العربية Català Čeština Deutsch Español Esperanto فارسی Français Galego Italiano עברית ಕನ್ನಡ Kurdî Latina Magyar Nederlands Norsk bokmål Polski Português Română Русский Simple English Suomi Svenska 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 23 January 2021, at 19:20 (UTC). 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