Elizabethan VengeanceThe Book of Exodus in the Holy Bible states that everyone should "give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (NLT 21:23) so that the world would be a just place, and also so that everyone would be properly punished for their wrongdoings. In the Elizabethan era, revenge was an extremely common enterprise. It's almost as if they closely follow what the Bible says about punishment and revenge in Elizabethan theater, because the specific incidents in revenge plays are nothing less than "an eye for an eye." . There are very specific guidelines for what constitutes a revenge play, and Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy illustrates these guidelines perfectly. The idea of ​​revenge tragedies originated in ancient Greece and they "dramatize the plight of a wronged hero", which occurs not only in The Spanish Tragedy, but also in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Some critics may argue that only The Spanish Tragedy is considered a "revenge tragedy", but certain events in both tragedies constitute what constitutes a revenge play, particularly The Spanish Tragedy. Although each of these plays is known as a "revenge tragedy", some claim that they have their own rules and do not follow the rules of a "typical" revenge story. With the theme of revenge being very popular in the Elizabethan era, play writers began to create plots that combined both tragedy and revenge, which essentially set a precedent for the characteristics of a revenge play. For a work to be considered a revenge play, it would automatically need some sort of highly intolerable fault right from the start from one character to another. The crime committed by the antagonist... middle of paper ... the rules, but not in the standard, expected way of Elizabethan revenge. No, his wife doesn't go crazy from the isolation, but they still go crazy from the grief. Even though the ghost is not directly in contact with the avenger himself, he still plays a role in leading the vengeance in a certain direction. “Thomas Kyd developed the Kydian formula not to move away from revenge tragedy, but to completely distinguish revenge tragedies from other plays.” No matter how he did it, his overriding theme was revenge, which ended up playing out exactly as it should. Even though Kyd follows his own path, he still manages to "follow very closely the conventions of Elizabethan theater" (). The central character, Hieronimo, ended up having to give his son's killers the justice they deserved and take matters into his own hands since no one else would..