This is a fully modernized, annotated edition of John Ford's controversial tragedy of sibling incest and complex revenge plots. As with all Arden editions, it features detailed on-page commentary notes to help the reader understand and appreciate the play both in performance and as a many layered literary text. The comprehensive introduction offers a wealth of critical and contextual information and explores the controversial theme of incest from an early modern perspective. Editor Sonia Massai reveals the startling originality of the play, which is far more than a dark rewriting of...

Francis Bacon described revenge as a 'kind of wild justice'. Then as now, early modern playwrights and their theatre-going public were fascinated by the anarchic energies that a desire for retribution unleashes. Rather than rehearsing familiar conventions, each of these plays presents a unique social and cultural milieu where dark fantasies of revenge are variously played out.

In Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy a grieving father seeks public justice for the murder of his son by envious princelings. When his attempts are thwarted he turns a court spectacle of murder into the...