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    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "Arden of Faversham"
    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "Arden of Faversham"
    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "Arden of Faversham"
    Ebook48 pages38 minutes

    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "Arden of Faversham"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "Arden of Faversham," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 12, 2016
    ISBN9781535818667
    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "Arden of Faversham"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Anonymous's "Arden of Faversham" - Gale

      1

      Arden of Faversham

      Anonymous

      1592

      Introduction

      The Tragedy of Master Arden of Faversham was first published in London in 1592, although it may have been written and performed several years earlier than that. The play appeared during the golden age of English drama that occurred toward the end of the Elizabethan Age, which refers to the reign of Elizabeth I, from 1558 to 1603.

      Arden of Faversham was published anonymously, and as of the early 2000s, the author remains unknown. It is possible that it was written by one of the three leading dramatists of the day: Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, or William Shakespeare. The play appears to have been popular during its time, being reprinted in 1599 and again in 1633, and it has been revived on many occasions in modern times.

      The play, which is classified as a domestic tragedy, is based on a sensational crime that took place in the small town of Faversham in the county of Kent, England, in 1551. The most prominent Faversham citizen, the wealthy landowner Thomas Arden, was murdered by two men hired by Arden's wife, Alice, who wanted to get rid of her husband because she was having an affair with a man named Mosby.

      In this chapter, all quotations are from the edition of Arden of Faversham edited by M. L. Wine, in the Revels Plays series published by Methuen. In some sources, the name Faversham is spelled Feversham.

      Author Biography

      The author of Arden of Faversham is unknown. The play was first published in London in 1592, although it may have been both written and performed several years earlier. Various theories have been advanced over the years regarding its author's identity. Minor Elizabethan dramatists, such as Robert Greene and George Peele, have been mentioned, but because of the high quality of the play, scholars have often investigated the possibility that it was written by one of the three most accomplished dramatists of the era: Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, or William Shakespeare.

      Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) is known in the early 2000s for his play, The Spanish Tragedy. But few other plays can be confidently ascribed to him. The case for his authorship of Arden of Faversham once rested on a belief that Kyd wrote the play Soliman and Perseda and a pamphlet, The Murder of John Brewen. There are, it is alleged, parallels between the two works and Arden of Faversham. However, modern scholarship in general regards Kyd's authorship of Soliman and Perseda as doubtful and has discredited the notion that Kyd wrote The Murder of John Brewen. There is no other evidence, either internal (the themes and language of the play) or external (contemporary documents), that would link Kyd to Arden of Faversham.

      Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was the author of six plays, including Tamburlaine the Great (1587), The Jew of Malta (first performed in 1592), and Dr. Faustus (first published 1604). Marlowe is usually proposed as a collaborator on Arden of Faversham rather than as its sole author. Some scholars have noted similarities in the imagery used in Arden of Faversham and

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