This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
In the late 16th century, a playwright named Thomas Kidd wrote a tragedy.
It was about an aristocrat who seeks revenge after his son is murdered.
Murder.
Murder.
Help her.
Out of my way.
Come.
Stop her mouth.
Away with her.
The play was called the spanish tragedy, and it is still produced occasionally today.
What outcries pluck me from my naked bed and chill my throbbing heart with.
Trembling fear, which never danger yet could daunt.
Before.
Thomas Kidd's play was popular in its day.
But unless you're an elizabethan scholar, you probably haven't heard of the playwright.
You may have heard about one of his contemporaries, though.
William Shakespeare.
As Thomas Kidd's career flatlined after the spanish tragedy, Shakespeare wrote masterpiece after masterpiece.