"`Tis murder's best face, when a vizard's on!": Morality and Metadrama in Renaissance Revenge Tragedy

This thesis analyzes the intersection of the genre of revenge tragedy with contemporary cultural ambivalence regarding drama and the use of disguise. By juxtaposing two seminal revenge plays, Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy, with contemporary antitheatrical texts, this study argues that revenge plays support antitheatrical critiques at the level of plot, but celebrate drama and inventiveness in their excessive metatheatricality.