The differences which distinguish the different periods do not conceal the essential unity of the entire development from 1562 to 1642. The changes that take place in the prevailing types are of degree and not of kind. Nearly all the tragedies might be called tragedies of blood, for nearly all deal with crime and bloodshed. A narrower division like that of the tragedy of revenge keeps its integrity from Kyd onward, the hesitation motive finding transformation in "Hamlet," the union of revenge, intrigue, and madness finding a different development in Webster and others, and remaining until the end the most prevalent type of tragedy. A majority of Elizabethan plays are romantic rather than classical or realistic, though the romance is of many kinds and drawn from many widely different sources, as Boccaccio, D'Urfé, or Lope de Vega. For a time it is mainly confined to romantic comedy, but it soon enters into tragedy and tragicomedy. In tragedy it plays a fitful part, but in tragicomedy it conquers the theatres. The course of tragedy from its inception in an amalgamation of medieval and classical elements, through its establishment by Marlowe, its development of types and methods, the transformation of these by Shakespeare into a dramatic form that changed and enlarged the meaning of tragedy for the centuries since then, the further development of types and methods under the innovations of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the splendid contribution that tragedy still received from Webster, Middleton, Ford, and Massinger,--all this was comprised within a single century; all that was most significant, within a single lifetime.