Revenge plays are works typically written during the Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods wherein a protagonist seeks vengeance, pursuing a path that often leads to madness and/or ruin. The Spanish Tragedy features the character Hieronimo’s attempts to avenge his son Horatio, who was killed by Lorenzo, the scheming nephew of the king of Portugal.

Passage adapted from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (1587)

Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587) contains an account of real Scottish historical figures called Macbeth, Macduff, and Duncan. The story of Shakespeare’s play differs considerably from Holinshed’s story, though.

Herodotus' The Histories (440 BCE), The Domesday Book (1086), Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), and The Magna Carta (1215) were all used as alternate answer choices.

The excerpt is taken from a poem by Edmund Spenser, who lived during the second half of the sixteenth century. Though he was a contemporary of Early Modern poets like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Spenser utilized deliberately archaic language that may seem like something that one would be more likely to find in Chaucer's poetry.

Passage adapted from The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, I.xiv.1-9 (1590)

Iago is a character in Shakespeare’s Othello (1622), not from The Tempest (1623).

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932)takes its title from lines that Miranda speaks in Act V scene 1 of the play: “Oh, wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, / That has such people in ’t!”

Joseph Heller's Catch 22 (1961), Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange (1962), George Orwell's 1984 (1949), and William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954) were all used as alternate answer choices.

The general consensus among scholars reflects that Shakespeare derived his story and main characters for Romeo and Juliet from Ovid's story of Pyramus and Thisbe. The story of Pyramus and Thisbe depicts two tragic lovers who are separated by their families, who do not approve of their marriage. They communicate their love through a cement wall and plan to meet under a tree outside to confess their love. However, when Thisbe comes out first, she mistakes the blood of a lion for Pyramus' blood and, believing he had been killed, kills herself.

The Tempest was first published in 1623 in the First Folio. Many scholars believe that it is the last play Shakespeare wrote. The play was probably first performed in 1611, but was not published until 1623.

Only Tony Kushner’s 1993 play Angels in America does not follow the storyline of Romeo and Juliet (1597). All the other works adopt the tragic story of two lovers whose families are sworn enemies, employing different character names and settings to investigate many of the same themes.

The similarities and resonances between Shakespeare in Love (1998) do not extend far past the use of Shakespeare's name in the title.

Arthur Laurents's West Side Story(1961), Tracy Letts' Killer Joe (1993), and Mac Wellman's Bad Infinity (1983) were all used as alternative answer choices.

Main characters spend the play seeking revenge in all of the above works except Ben Jonson’s 1606 satire Volpone, which is a vicious, incisive comedy. While mean-spirited, Volpone is more concerned with satirical skewering than revenge plots.

William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (1594) and Hamlet (1603), Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's Gorboduc (1561), and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (1614) were all used as alternative answer options. They are all revenge tragedies.

Passage adapted from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (1587)

Macbeth (1623)is set in Scotland. (Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1604)is set in Denmark, Antony and Cleopatra (1623)is set in ancient Egypt, Romeo and Juliet (1597)is set in Verona, and Othello (1622) is set partly in Venice.)