City comedy

City comedies a form of produced in the early 17th century (also known as citizen comedies)
in England that satirized the manners, social customs, and financial dealings of London’s
new prosperous merchant class. This popular genre attracted such leading playwrights as
Thomas Dekker, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Heywood,
Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher. The period was one of economic and social upheaval
in which a trading class of entrepreneurs developed into an established middle class.
Accordingly, citizen comedy is characterized by plots about social-climbing and greed, with
characters marrying for money, tricking heirs out of their fortunes, and dreaming up schemes
to get rich quickly. There is much good-natured moralizing. The plays written were neither
romantic nor plotine comedy but satire was the chief weapon of the plays. Few such plays
are as follows:

1. The shoe makers holiday(1599) by Thomas dekker

The play is a prose fiction which is a gallery of interesting character. This a celebration of
mercantile class where the story features into three subplots: an inter-class romance
between a citizen of London and an aristocrat, the ascension of shoemaker Simon Eyre
to Lord Mayor of London, and a romance between a gentleman and a shoemaker's wife,
whose husband appears to have died in the wars with France.

2. Eastward Hoe (1605) is an early Jacobean-era stage play written by George

Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston. The play was first performed at theBlackfriars
Theatre by a company of boy actors known as the Children of the Queen's Revels in
early August 1605. Eastward Ho! is a citizen or city comedy about Touchstone, a London
goldsmith, and his two apprentices, Quicksilver and Golding. The play is highly satirical
about social customs in early modern London, and its anti-Scottish satire resulted in a
notorious scandal. The play deals with a goldsmith and his household. He has two
apprentices and two daughters. One apprentice, Golding, is industrious and temperate;
the other, Quicksilver, is rash and ambitious. One daughter, Mildred, is mild and modest;
the other, Gertrude, is vain. Mildred and Golding marry. Gertrude marries the fraudulent
Sir Petronel Flash, a man who possesses a title but no money. Sir Petronel promises
Gertrude a coach and six and a castle. Sir Petronel takes her dowry and sends her off in
a coach for an imaginary castle while he and Quicksilver set off for Virginiaafter
Quicksilver has robbed the goldsmith. During this time, the provident and careful Golding
has become a deputy alderman. Quicksilver and Petronel are shipwrecked on the Isle of
Dogs and are brought up on charges for their actions. They come before Golding. After
time in prison, where they repent of their schemes and dishonesty, Golding has them
released.
3. A chaste maid in cheapside(1613) by Thomas Middleton

The play was originally average staged by the Lady Elizabeth's Men.[1] The 1630quarto was
published by the bookseller Francis Constable. presents multiple plots centered around the
marriage of Moll Yellowhammer, a chaste maid, who is daughter to the ambitious
goldsmith, Yellowhammer. He hopes to marry her off to the philandering Sir Walter
Whorehound but Moll loves Touchwood Junior, a poor but gallant young man. In
return for Moll’s hand, Sir Walter promises Yellowhammer that Moll's brother Tim can
marry his wealthy, welsh niece. In reality, Sir Walter’s niece is one of his mistresses,
who has no land, title, or wealth. Despite pursuing Moll, Sir Walter is also having an
affair with the wife of Allwit, a willing cuckold, who has given his blessing on the affair
in return for financial support.

Elsewhere, Touchwood Senior, a prodigiously fertile and promiscuous man, must

separate from his wife in order to avoid another pregnancy, which would cause them
financial ruin. However, before he leaves, he comes into contact with the Kixes, an
aging couple who are desperate to conceive but are running out of time and hope. If
they do not conceive, Sir Walter will inherit the fortune on which they depend.
Torchwood Senior spots his opportunity and, informing the couple that he has a
special fertility potion, he sends Sir Kix off on a long horse ride while he impregnates
Lady Kix. Truly grateful, Sir Kix promises to support Touchwood Senior’s family.

Desperate not to marry Sir Walter Whorehound, Moll flees her parents' home the day
before the wedding. However, while while attempting to cross the River Thames, she
is found drenched through and seems to fall sick when she is brought home.
Meanwhile, Touchwood Junior and Sir Walter fight over Moll in the street, and both
seem severely wounded. Sir Walter believes that he is near death and he begins to
repents all of his sins in desperation. He condemns the Allwits for allowing him into
their marriage. In return they kick him out and plan to sell off all the gifts he has given
them and move away.

Touchwood Senior brings word to a sickly Moll that his brother has died. Moll faints
and appears to die, and all agree that the young lovers deserve a joint burial. As the
funeral commences, Moll and Touchwood Junior are revealed to be alive and grief
turns to celebration. The couple are wed, and it is revealed that Tim and the welsh
"niece" had also been wed earlier that day. Touchwood Senior announces that Sir
Walter has been imprisoned for debt as they all celebrate a fortuitous end to their
problems.
Revenge tragedy
Revenge tragedy is a theoretical genre in which the principal theme is revenge and
revenge's fatal consequences. The revenge tragedy genre of English literature
generally refers to a body of dramatic works written from the mid-1580s to the early
1640s, from the Elizabethan to the Caroline period. Typically, these works feature
such themes and devices as a wronged revenge-seeker, ghosts, madness, delay,
sinister intrigue, a play-within-the-play, torture, multiple murders, and the realistic
depiction of bloody violence onstage.
A Revenge Tragedy is a Renaissance genre of drama in which the plot
revolves around the hero'sattempt to avenge a previous wrong by killing
the perpetrator of the deed, commonly with a greatdeal of bloodshed and
incidental violence.

Thomas Kyd, (baptized Nov. 6, 1558, London, Eng.—

died c. December 1594, London), English dramatist who, with
his The Spanish Tragedy (sometimes
called Hieronimo, or Jeronimo, after its protagonist), initiated
the revenge tragedy of his day. Kyd anticipated the structure of many
later plays, including the development of middle and final climaxes. In
addition, he revealed an instinctive sense of tragic situation, while his
characterization of Hieronimo in The Spanish Tragedy prepared the
way for Shakespeare’s psychological study of Hamlet.

The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again[1] is an Elizabethan tragedy written

by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, The
Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or
revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of
itscharacters a personification of Revenge. The Spanish Tragedy is often considered to
be the first mature Elizabethan drama
Audiences watching Hamlet at the time it was first performed would recognize the
play as belonging to a particular genre: they didn’t have a name for it, but modern
scholars call it “revenge tragedy.” In a revenge tragedy the hero has suffered a great
wrong, usually the murder of someone he loves, and the plot is driven by his desire
for revenge. At the end of the play, the hero murders the person who has wronged
him, and typically the hero also dies. The first really popular revenge tragedy
was The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd. It was written more than a decade
before Hamlet, and it was still being performed when Hamlet was first staged.
Shakespeare’s audiences would have noticed that Hamlet borrows several features
from Kyd’s play, including a vengeful ghost, a play-within-a-play and a hero who
goes mad. But rather than simply repeating the familiar conventions of the revenge
tragedy, Hamlet subverts many of the tropes to question both the genre of revenge
tragedy, as well as the nature of revenge itself.
Hamlet turns revenge tragedy on its head by taking away the usual obstacles to the
hero’s vengeance. In a typical revenge tragedy like The Spanish Tragedy, the hero
faces two obstacles: to find out who the murderers are, and then to get himself into a
position where he can kill them. In Hamlet, the hero learns the identity of his father’s
murderer at the end of Act I, and he’s in a position to kill Claudius from the very
beginning. No character thwarts him in his desire for revenge, and, living in the same
palace as his nemesis, he has many chances to enact his plot. Hamlet’s only real
obstacle is in his head: he is uncertain what he should believe and how he should
act. By making the obstacles to Hamlet’s revenge internal, Shakespeare introduces
philosophical questions to the revenge tragedy which had not appeared in the genre
before. Can we believe the evidence of our eyes? Is revenge justified? Can we
predict the consequences of our actions? What happens when we die?
While Hamlet, being a tragedy, is generally seen as a very serious play, in some
ways it seems to make fun of the revenge tragedies that came before it. When
Hamlet cries “Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless Villain! / O,
vengeance!” (II.ii.) he sounds like a sillier version of Hieronimo, the hero of The
Spanish Tragedy. The play-within-a-play staged in Act III, Scene 2 is a parody of a
revenge tragedy: its rhymes would have made it sound absurdly old-fashioned to an
audience in Shakespeare’s time. With the character of Laertes, Shakespeare pokes
fun at the traditional heroes of revenge tragedy. Unlike Hamlet, Laertes is ready to
rush to his revenge, but Claudius is easily able to manipulate him and Laertes ends
up begging forgiveness from the man he wanted to murder. By making traditional
revenge tragedies look ridiculous, Shakespeare shows us that the troubling
philosophical doubt of Hamlet is more realistic than the passion and fury of plays
like The Spanish Tragedy.
After Hamlet, the genre of revenge tragedy would never be taken entirely seriously
again. Later revenge tragedies follow Hamlet in using humor, especially humor at the
expense of the revenge tragedy genre itself. The best-known revenge tragedy
written after Hamlet is The Revenger’s Tragedy, by Thomas Middleton, which was first
performed in 1606. Despite its title, The Revenger’s Tragedy is as much a black
comedy as a revenge tragedy. Its violence is deliberately over-the-top and its plot
absurdly complicated. Middleton was also influenced by Hamlet’s philosophical
questions. Where Hamlet doubted the morality of seeking revenge, Middleton’s hero
Vindice is openly immoral in pursuing his: by the end of the play Vindice is more a
villain than a hero. Modern action movies also owe a great deal to Hamlet’s comic
take on the revenge plot. Movies like Kill Bill and John Wick share
with Hamlet and The Revenger’s Tragedyamoral heroes and complex revenge plots
ending in comically gory action sequences.