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Antonio's Revenge
A play brimming with linguistic superfluity and spectacular
gore, John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge (1599) has been
portrayed by critics as everything from a brilliant burlesque
of revenge tragedies to a grotesquely overwrought literary
disaster. While the play is, as the title might suggest, a
revenge tragedy, the degree to which its author intended it
to be seriously received as one is a matter of persistent
critical contention. Part of this confusion lies in the play’s
notorious excesses in language, characterization, and
violence. The play’s bizarre ending is especially problematic:
in the final act, Antonio and his friends not only torture and
kill the villainous Piero, they also murder and cook an
innocent child. Instead of being punished, however, these
revengers are heaped with praise and offered rewards
before announcing their plans to become religious hermits.

While some critics argue that this ending reveals Marston’s own personal sadistic bent, others
simply see it as evidence of his lack of skills as a dramatist. T.S. Eliot, for example, has noted
that this play, along with its predecessor Antonio and Mellida, "give the effect of work done by a
man who was so exasperated by having to write in a form he despised that he deliberately wrote
worse than he could have written, in order to relieve his feelings." Eliot’s notion of Marston writing
"to relieve his feelings" is not without merit; Antonio spends the entirety of Antonio’s Revenge
either describing his feelings in melodramatic ecstasy or "relieving" them through murder.
Because Antonio is one of the most overtly emotional characters in Renaissance drama,
Antonio’s Revenge is, at least in part, a play about the physical dangers of excess emotion.

Antonio’s Revenge presents emotion as a corruptive force by continually linking it with the human
body. According to Renaissance philosophy, the human body was the seat of sin and decay—a
sordid counterpart to the virtuous soul. In Antonio’s Revenge, the connection between corrupt
emotion and the corrupt body is present in both language and action. References to the body in
this play are almost always negative: corpses rot, bloody wounds cry out, and ribcages burst with
anguish. Because the human body is both the cause and conduit of this pain, emotions that arise
from the body, such as rage or lust—both of which were thought to come from the liver—are also
necessarily negative. This link between the emotional and the physical is reinforced throughout
the play. In promising to avenge his father’s death, for example, Antonio vows that his heart will
"beat on" vengeance—that is, it will be both fixated on and be powered by the thought of
revenge.
Encouraged by the ghost of his murdered father, Antonio further swears: "May I be numbed with
horror and my veins / Pucker with singeing torture, if my brain / Digest a thought but of dire
vengeance! / May I be fettered slave to coward chance, / If blood, heart, brain, plot aught save
vengeance!" (III.ii.85-92). In these lines, Antonio urges his blood, heart, and brain to be wholly
consumed with revenge. He imagines that his brain will "digest" his thoughts, creating a doubly
corporeal image. Furthermore, the consequences he imagines for himself—being "numbed with
horror" and having his veins "pucker with singeing torture" emphasize the physicality of his
promise to revenge his father’s murder.

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Avenging his father’s death thus becomes not only an act of justice, but also an act of bodily
necessity. By committing all of his major organs to the cause of revenge, Antonio makes revenge
part of his physiology. In binding vengeance to the human body, Antonio builds on traditional early
modern concepts of the dichotomy between the body and the soul, using the theory of the corrupt
body to justify all of the ghastly violence that follows.
1) This passage would most likely be found in

A. the editorial section of a newspaper

B. an encyclopedia article about playwright John Marston
C. a scholarly journal about English literature
D. the book review section of a popular magazine
E. the playbill for an upcoming performance

2) In the first paragraph, the author states that many critics find the ending of John Marston’s
1599 play Antonio’s Revenge confusing because

A. it is uncharacteristically violent
B. the “heroic” characters act like villains and are not punished for their crimes
C. the entire play itself is actually a parody of other revenge tragedies
D. the arrival of a group of religious hermits at the end of the play causes great disorder
E. the language becomes especially difficult to understand

3) The author notes that critics have attributed the play’s strange ending to the fact that
John Marston

I. actually hated writing plays

II. had a cruel nature
III. was an incompetent playwright

A. l only
B. II only
C. I and II only
D. II and III only
E. I, II, and III
4) As used in paragraph 3, which is the best antonym for sordid?

A. violent
B. contrary
C. pure
D. beloved
E. calm

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5) In paragraph 3, the author describes the line in which Antonio imagines his brain “digesting”
his thoughts. If corporeal means relating to the body, then this particular line is said to
present “ a doubly corporeal image” because

A. the stomach is usually understood to be the organ involved in digestion, but instead the
brain takes on this task
B. in the Renaissance, negative emotions like rage and lust supposedly arose from the liver,
not the brain
C. the brain was traditionally thought of as the location of the soul, which was
supposedly virtuous
D. Antonio is wholly committing himself to the act of revenge, an act that he imagines will
require the involvement of all his body parts
E. the imagery in this line is especially vivid and disgusting

6) It can be inferred that in Antonio’s Revenge, the character Piero

A. becomes a religious hermit at the end of the play

B. has murdered Antonio’s father
C. is an innocent child
D. ultimately becomes the hero of the play
E. represents the author himself

7) According to the argument in the final paragraph, Antonio links his desire for vengeance to
the human body in order to

A. explain the philosophical underpinnings of the body/soul dichotomy to the audience

B. provide a vivid link between revenge and the liver
C. highlight the superiority of the virtuous soul
D. rationalize his murderous actions
E. counter Renaissance notions about the corrupt nature of the body

8) Using your own words, explain how Renaissance philosophers understood the
relationship between the body and the soul.

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Partnership; Distributing, reusing, republishing the document in any way or form is forbidden .