Which set of features belongs to the conventions of English revenge tragedy?
AMistaken identities, marriages and a festive ending
BA ghost demanding vengeance, the revenger's delay, madness and a play-within-the-play
CA chorus of townspeople who never take part in the action
DA strict observance of the unities of time, place and action
These features recur from The Spanish Tragedy through Hamlet and later Jacobean plays. Festive marriages belong to comedy, and the unities were a neoclassical ideal that English revenge plays usually ignored.
Question 2 True / False
Because Elizabethan church and state approved of private revenge, revenge tragedies present the revenger as a hero without moral question.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Private revenge was condemned in sermons and law. Francis Bacon called it 'a kind of wild justice' that law ought to 'weed out.' The genre's tension comes from asking audiences to sympathize with a forbidden act.
Question 3 Multiple Choice
Which classical playwright served as the main model for English revenge tragedy?
AAristophanes
BSeneca
CPlautus
DMenander
Seneca's Latin tragedies, such as Thyestes, offered ghosts, revenge plots, violent crimes and long rhetorical speeches. They were read in schools and translated into English, collected in 1581. Aristophanes, Plautus and Menander wrote comedy.
Question 4 Short Answer
Hamlet delays his revenge for much of the play. Why is the delay important to the play's meaning?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The delay turns the plot inward. It lets Hamlet question whether the Ghost tells the truth, whether killing is right, and what action means at all, so the play becomes a study of conscience and doubt, not just a revenge plot.
Delay is a convention of the genre, since the revenge must wait until the last act. Shakespeare uses that structural need to explore the revenger's mind, which is a large part of why Hamlet stands out in the tradition.