Lo español en The Spanish Tragedy

Abstract

In Renaissance England literature, and especially drama, is fully aware of the historical and political context. What we get in The Spanish Tragedy is not a precise reference to the tactual event but its dramatic interpretation. The literary use of history is a consequence of the personal and contextual experience of the dramatist drawn by the writer from the ideas and practices of the culture he inhabits as well as of his historical awareness and political situation. Thus the metahistorical approach becomes an essential clue to understand the Spanish element which, in this case, has not only a negative sense but a paradigmatic intention.