The appearance of Revenge Tragedy in Elizabethan Drama - Looking at the historical development of English Drama, we see that the tragic plays of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period are fre_quently concerned with revenge. Plays of this genre reflect man's tendency to defy God's beneficent will. It can be said that the revenge plays have in common a criticism of life, and are in a way a warning to men to choose good rather than evil. The dramatic theme of revenge proved to be popular in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, because it appeal_ed to the Elizabethan and Jacobean taste for Grand Guignol 1/ - a taste shared by some cinema and theatrical audiences today. Apart from this, Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers were very eager to witness the revelation of peculiar states of mind and these could nowhere be seen except in plays of this kind.Foreign elements - The Elizabethan and Jacobean plays of revenge are not however entirely original in conception. Their authors_