Studying English Literature in Context Critical Readings

Arden of Faversham is one of the few anonymous dramas which even today enjoy a great deal of popularity both among readers and on stage. It is perhaps the best-known ‘domestic tragedy’ and is based on an actual murder committed in 1551. The play was written between 1588 and 1591 and printed in 1592 as a quarto edition. As was also the case with Shakespeare’s history plays, Macbeth, parts of King Lear and Cymbeline, Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577; rev. 1578) was the play’s most important historical source; and this essay will focus primarily on the ways in which this material was used, as well as the play’s ongoing reception. The essay begins with an overview of the actual historical events behind the play’s action, before sketching out its genesis as a drama of intensively debated authorship. Following this, it argues that even in spite of its moralising framework, Arden opened English drama up to a new range of subject matters by considerably narrowing the gap between lofty subjects deemed worthy of a stylised poetic treatment, on the one hand, and the humble fare traditionally more suited to comedy, on the other. It is this innovative combination which may (at least in part) explain its enduring popularity. The essay’s concluding sections consider the complex relationship between the tragedy and its source, arguing that Arden reflects gradual societal and moral shifts around the question of marriage in particular.