KYD, THOMAS (1558-1594), one of the most important of the English Elizabethan dramatists who preceded Shakespeare. Kyd remained until the last decade of the 19th century in what appeared likely to be impenetrable obscurity. Even his name was forgotten until Thomas Hawkins about 1773 discovered it in connection with The Spanish Tragedy in Thomas Heywood's Apologie for Actors. But by the industry of English and German scholars a great deal of light has since been thrown on his life and writings. He was the son of Francis Kyd, citizen and scrive ner of London, and was baptized in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard street, on Nov. 6, 1558. His mother, who sur vived her son, was named Agnes, or Anna. In Oct. 2565 Kyd en tered the newly founded Merchant Taylors' school. He apparently followed, soon after leaving school, his father's business as a scrive ner. But Nashe describes him as a "shifting companion that ran through every art and throve by none." He showed a fairly wide range of reading in Latin. The author on whom he draws most freely is Seneca, but there are many reminiscences, and occasion ally mistranslations of other authors. Nashe contemptuously said that "English Seneca read by candlelight yeeldes many good sen tences," no doubt exaggerating his indebtedness to Thomas New ton's translation. John Lyly had a more marked influence on his manner than any of his contemporaries.
a sort of prologue to The Spanish Tragedy, called The First Part of Jeronimo, or The Warres of Portugal, not printed till 1605. Prof. Boas concludes that Kyd had nothing to do with this melo dramatic production, which gives a different version of the story and presents Jeronimo as little more than a buffoon. Kyd's name has been connected with what German criticism calls the Ur Hamlet, the original draft of the tragedy of the prince of Denmark. (See HAMLET.) His next work was in all probability the tragedy of Solirnan and Perseda, written perhaps in 1588 and licensed for the press in 1592, which, although anonymous, is assigned to him on strong internal evidence by Boas. It was reprinted, after Kyd's death, in 1599.
Towards the close of his life Kyd came into close connection with Marlowe. In 1590-93 both dramatists were in the service of the same "noble lord," perhaps Lord Pembroke or Lord Strange or the earl of Sussex, to whose countess Kyd dedicated his Cornelia (1593-94), an adaptation of Garnier's tragedy. When, in May 1593, the "lewd libels" and "blasphemies" of Marlowe came before the notice of the Star Chamber, Kyd was immediately ar rested, papers of his having been found "shuffled" with some of Marlowe's who was imprisoned a week later. A visitation on Kyd's papers was made in consequence of a seditious libel attached to the wall of the Dutch churchyard in Austin Friars. Of this he was innocent, but there was found in his chamber a paper of "vile heretical conceits denying the deity of Jesus Christ." Kyd was arrested and put to the torture in Bridewell. He asserted that he knew nothing of this document, and tried to shift the responsibility of it upon Marlowe, but he was kept in prison until after the death of that poet (June 1, 1593). When he was at length dismissed, his patron refused to take him back into his service. He fell into utter destitution, and sank under the weight of "bitter times and privy broken passions" ("Dedication" to Cornelia). He must have died late in 1594, and on Dec. 3o, of that year his parents renounced their administration of the goods of their deceased son. To Kyd are ascribed two prose pamphlets : The Householder's Tragedy (1588), translated from Tasso, and The Most Wicked and Secret Murdering of John Brewer, Goldsmith (1592).