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KYD, THOMAS (1558-1594)

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 959 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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KYD, See also:THOMAS (1558-1594) , one of the most important of the See also:English Elizabethan dramatists who preceded See also:Shakespeare. Kyd remained until the last See also:decade of the 19th See also:century in what appeared likely to be impenetrable obscurity. Even his name was forgotten until Thomas See also:Hawkins about 1773 discovered it in connexion with The See also:Spanish Tragedy in Thomas See also:Heywood's A pologie for Actors. But by the See also:industry of English and See also:German scholars a See also:great See also:deal of See also:light has since been thrown on his See also:life and writings. He was the son of See also:Francis Kyd, See also:citizen and scrivener of See also:London, and was baptized in the See also:church of St See also:Mary Woolnoth, Lombard See also:Street, on the 6th of See also:November 1558. His See also:mother, who survived her son, was named See also:Agnes, or See also:Anna. In See also:October 1565 Kyd entered the newly founded See also:Merchant Taylors' School, where See also:Edmund See also:Spenser and perhaps Thomas See also:Lodge were at different times his school-See also:fellows. It is thought that Kyd did not proceed to either of the See also:universities; he apparently followed, soon after leaving school, his See also:father's business as a scrivener. But See also:Nashe describes him as a " shifting See also:companion that ran through every See also:art and throve by none." He showed a fairly wide range of See also:reading in Latin. The author on whom he draws most freely is See also:Seneca, but there are many reminiscences, and occasion-ally mistranslations of other authors. Nashe contemptuously said that " English Seneca read by candlelight yeeldes many See also:good sentences," no doubt exaggerating his indebtedness to Thomas See also:Newton's See also:translation. See also:John See also:Lyly had a more marked See also:influence on his manner than any of his contemporaries.

It is believed that he produced his famous See also:

play, The Spanish Tragedy, between 1584 and 1589; the See also:quarto in the See also:British Museum (which is probably earlier than the See also:Gottingen and See also:Ellesmere quartos, dated 1594 and 159y) is undated, and the play was licensed for the See also:press in 1592. The full See also:title runs, The Spanish Tragedie containing the Lamentable End of See also:Don Horatio and See also:Bel-imperia; with the Pitiful See also:Death of Old Hieronimo, and the play is commonly referred to by See also:Henslowe and other contemporaries as Hieronimo. This See also:drama enjoyed all through the See also:age of See also:Elizabeth and even of See also:James I. and See also:Charles I. so unflagging a success that it has been styled the most popular of all old English plays. Certain expressions in Nashe's See also:preface to the 1589 edition of See also:Robert See also:Greene's Menaphon may be said to have started a whole See also:world of See also:speculation with regard to Kyd's activity. Much of this is still very puzzling; nor is it really understood why See also:Ben See also:Jonson called him " sporting Kyd." In 1592 there was added a sort of See also:prologue to The Spanish Tragedy, called The First See also:Part of Jeronimo, or The Warres of See also:Portugal, not printed till 16o5. See also:Professor Boas concludes that Kyd had nothing to do with this melodramatic See also:production, which gives a different version of the See also:story and presents Jeronimo as little more than a buffoon. On the other See also:hand, it becomes more and more certain that what German See also:criticism calls the Ur-See also:Hamlet, the See also:original draft of the' tragedy of the See also:prince of See also:Denmark, was a lost See also:work by Kyd, probably composed by him in 1587. This theory has been very elaborately worked out by Professor See also:Sarrazin, and confirmed by Professor Boas; these scholars are doubtless right in holding that traces of Kyd's play survive in the first two acts of the 1603 first quarto of Hamlet, but they probably go too far in attributing much of the actual See also:language of the last three acts to Kyd. Kyd's next work was in all See also:probability the tragedy of Soliman and Perseda, written perhaps in 1588 and licensed for the press in 1592, which, although See also:anonymous, is assigned to him on strong See also:internal See also:evidence by Mr Boas. No copy of the first edition has come down to us; but it was re-printed, after Kyd's death, in 1599. In the summer or autumn of 1J90 Kyd seems to have given up See also:writing for the See also:stage, and to have entered the service of an unnamed See also:lord, who employed a See also:troop of " players." Kyd was probably the private secretary of this nobleman, in whom Professor Boas See also:sees Robert See also:Radcliffe, afterwards fifth See also:earl of See also:Sussex. To the wife of the earl (See also:Bridget See also:Morison of Cassiobury) Kyd dedicated in the last See also:year of his life his translation of See also:Garnier's See also:Cornelia (1594), to the See also:dedication of which he attached his See also:initials.

Two See also:

prose See also:works of the dramatist have survived, a See also:treatise on domestic See also:economy, The Householder's See also:Philosophy, translated from the See also:Italian of See also:Tasso (1588); and a sensational See also:account of The Most Wicked and See also:Secret Murdering of John See also:Brewer, See also:Goldsmith (1592). His name is written on the title-See also:page of the unique copy of the last-named pamphlet at See also:Lambeth, but probably not by his hand. That many of Kyd's plays and poems have been lost is proved by the fact that fragments exist, attributed to him, which are found in no surviving context. Towards the See also:close of his life Kyd was brought into relations with See also:Marlowe. It would seem that in 1590, soon after he entered the service of this nobleman, Kyd formed his acquaintance. If he is to be believed, he shrank at once from Marlowe as a See also:man " intemperate and of a cruel See also:heart " and " irreligious." This, however, was said by Kyd with the rope See also:round his See also:neck, and is scarcely consistent with a good deal of apparent intimacy between him and Marlowe. When, in May 1593, the " lewd libels " and " blasphemies " of Marlowe came before the See also:notice of the See also:Star Chamber, Kyd was immediately arrested, papers of his having been found " shuffled " with some of Marlowe's, who was imprisoned a See also:week later. A visitation on Kyd's papers was made in consequence of his having attached a seditious See also:libel to the See also:wall of the Dutch See also:churchyard in See also:Austin Friars. Of this he was See also:innocent, but there was found in his chamber a See also:paper of " vile heretical conceits denying the deity of Jesus See also:Christ." Kyd was arrested and put to the See also:torture in See also:Bridewell. He asserted that he knew nothing of this document and tried to shift the responsibility of it upon Marlowe, but he was kept in See also:prison until after the death of that poet (See also:June 1, 1593). When he was at length dismissed, his See also:patron refused to take him back into his service. He See also:fell into utter destitution, and sank under the See also:weight of " See also:bitter times and privy broken passions." He must have died See also:late in 1594, and on the 3oth of See also:December of that year his parents renounced their See also:administration of the goods of their deceased son, in a document of great importance discovered by Professor Schick.

The importance of Kyd, as the See also:

pioneer in the wonderful See also:movement of See also:secular drama in See also:England, gives great See also:interest to his works, and we are now able at last to assert what many critics have See also:long conjectured, that he takes in that movement the position of a See also:leader and almost of an inventor. Regarded from this point of view, The Spanish Tragedy is a work of extraordinary value, since it is the earliest specimen of effective stage See also:poetry existing in English literature. It had been preceded only by the See also:pageant-poems of See also:Peele and Lyly, in which all that constitutes in the See also:modern sense theatrical technique and effective construction was entirely absent. These gifts, in which the whole See also:power of the See also:theatre as a See also:place cf See also:general entertainment was to consist, were supplied earliest among English playwrights to Kyd, and were first exercised by him, so far as we can see, in 1586. This, then, is a more or less definite starting date for Elizabethan drama, and of See also:peculiar value to its historians. Curiously enough, The Spanish Tragedy, which was the earliest stage-play of the great See also:period, was also the most popular, and held its own right through the careers of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and See also:Fletcher. It was not any shortcoming in its harrowing and exciting See also:plot, but the tameness of its archaic versification, which probably led in 1602 to its receiving " additions," which have been a great stumbling-See also:block to the critics. It is known that Ben Jonson was paid for these additional scenes, but they are extremely unlike all other known writings of his, and several scholars have independently conjectured that John See also:Webster wrote them. Of Kyd himself it seems needful to point out that neither the Germans nor even Professor Boas seems to realize how little definite merit his poetry has. He is important, not in himself, but as a pioneer. The influence of Kyd is marked on all the immediate predecessors of Shakespeare, and the bold way in which scenes of violent See also:crime were treated on the Elizabethan stage appears to be directly owing to the example of Kyd's innovating See also:genius. His relation to Hamlet has already been noted, and See also:Titus Andronicus presents and exaggerates so many of his characteristics that Mr See also:Sidney See also:Lee and others have supposed that tragedy to be a work of Kyd's touched up by Shakespeare.

Professor Boas, however, brings cogent objections against this theory, See also:

founding them on what he considers the imitative inferiority of Titus Andronicus to The Spanish Tragedy. The German critics have pushed too far their See also:attempt to find indications of Kyd's influence on later plays of Shakespeare. The extraordinary interest See also:felt for Kyd in See also:Germany is explained by the fact that The Spanish Tragedy was long the best known of all Elizabethan plays abroad. It was acted at See also:Frankfort in 16o1, and published soon afterwards at See also:Nuremberg. It continued to be a stock piece in Germany until the beginning of the 18th century; it was equally popular in See also:Holland, and potent in its effect upon Dutch dramatic literature. Kyd's works were first collected and his life written by Professor F. S. Boas in 1901. Of modern See also:editions of The Spanish Tragedy may be mentioned that by Professor J. M. Manly in Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama, vol. ii. (See also:Boston, 1897), and by J.

Schick in the See also:

Temple Dramatists (1898). See also Cornelia (ed. H. Gassner, 1894) ; C. Markscheffel, T. Kyd's Tragodien (1885) ; Gregor Sarrazin, Thomas Kyd and sein Kreis (1892); G. O. See also:Fleischer, " Bemerkungen fiber Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy " (Jahresbericht der Drei-Konigsehule zu See also:Dresden-See also:Neustadt (1896); J. Schick, " T. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy " (Literarhistorische Forschungen, vol. 19, 1901) ; and R. Koppel, in Prolss, Altengl.

Theater (vol. i., 1904). (E.

End of Article: KYD, THOMAS (1558-1594)

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