Renaissance tragedy and detective heroesThe role of the detective in Renaissance tragedy, with particular reference to Shakespeare's Hamlet and the Spanish tragedy of Thomas Kyd. I will therefore seek, under the circumstances, to confirm what I can gather writtenHieronimo The play is the thingWhere I will capture the conscience of the KingHamletThe roots of the blossoming tree of detective fiction can be traced back to the ancient soil of the Bible, and beyond, into the literature that contains mysteries to solve and figures who act as detectives. Mystery was present in classical Greek tragedy. In Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BC) Oedipus' identity is a mystery, the unraveling of which influences the movement of the plot. Indeed, the very term "anagnorisis" indicates a discovery, the revelation of a mystery. In the biblical era, perhaps one of the first acts of "taking over" took place when Herod killed all the newborns on a particular night in an attempt to eliminate the prophesied child to ruin him. We also have other examples of surveying before Christ; prophets, like Daniel, could interpret dreams. This was detection in the sense that they had to interpret symbolic images to understand their meaning. In this sense the prophets could be called “investigators”. But these dreams were most often interpreted in a visionary mood, so discovery in the strictest sense of the word cannot be used here. We also have the discovery in the 12th-century German epic Nibelungenlied, where Hagen, Brunhild's minister of vengeance, coaxes the secret of the vulnerable spot in Siegfried's body from Kriemhild. In romantic fiction we see for the first time in European literature a systematic use of mystery... middle of paper... Zadig's innocence was recognized - he was presented before the Great Desterhan where he pleaded his case in these terms: "This is what happened to me. I was walking towards the grove, where I recently met the venerable Eunuch and the most illustrious Vizier. I had seen the tracks of an animal on the sand, and I easily judged that they were those of a small dog. I light and long grooves imprinted on the small eminences of the sand between the traces of the feet showed me that it was a female and that she had recently given birth to puppies. Other traces that seemed to continuously raise the surface of the sand at the side of the front legs told me who had long ears. Observing that the sand was always less crushed by one foot than by three others, I understood that our august Queen's dog was, if I may say so, a little lame..."