The Two Noble Kinsmen: Collaboration, Self-parody, & Retrospective Lens?

What Would Yogi Bera say?
If I were at production of an Early Modern play about a ruler named Theseus and his bride, Hippolyta, I might think the play was A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

If the plot involved three females, along with a war-inclined man’s wife, urging a the man to violence, I might guess that the play was Macbeth.

If it involved a young woman who falls in love with a young man that her father believes is beyond her reach, and she later goes mad and is at risk of drowning, I’d think it was Hamlet.

If it involved a rag-tag bunch of amateur actors putting on a show for their ruler, I’d think we were back in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

If the plot involved a love and possible betrothal confused or complicated by mistaken identities, I’d think the play might be Twelfth Night or Much Ado About Nothing.

If the play involved a ruler named Creon dishonoring the dead by prohibiting the burial of certain corpses, I’d think it was a production of Sophocles’ play, Antigone, from the Oedipus cycle.

Yogi Berra might watch the play and say, “It’s deja vu all over again.”


[image public domain via Wikipedia]
The Two Noble Kinsmen, by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, combines all of these elements and more, especially a tale from Chaucer about two knights who both love the same woman.

What Were Fletcher & Shakespeare Thinking?
When Shakespeare and Fletcher collaborated to write this play, all the previously mentioned works of Shakespeare had already been written and were familiar to Fletcher and audiences of the time. “The Knight’s Tale” by Chaucer was also familiar to many in Shakespeare’s lifetime.

We might ask: What were the intentions of the writers regarding all of these echoes of elements from other Shakespeare plays? Were they merely familiar plot elements, a common currency of the stage, to be used by playwrights un-self-consciously to create yet another play, as the show must go on, and even actors and playwrights need to earn their keep?

Or did the writing of this play involve a bit of self-parody and celebration of Shakespeare’s substantial career, with nods toward his previous works? Perhaps. Given Shakespeare’s long and successful career, it would not be a surprise.

Fletcher was about to succeed Shakespeare as the main playwright for The King’s Men upon Shakespeare’s retirement. Fletcher had previously been playwright for the Children of the Queen's Revels, so some might view Fletcher and Shakespeare as competing playwrights, like the cousins in the play, Palamon and Arcite, who compete for the love of the same woman.

John Fletcher had also collaborated with, and lived with, the playwright Francis Beaumont; so Shakespeare and Fletcher’s adaptation of the Chaucer tale (already adapted for stage by others) may have involved a tongue-in-cheek reference to Fletcher and Beaumont’s history, or at least known gossip about them.

Prayers to Mars, Venus, & Diana
In the Chaucer tale and the play, before the contest, Arcite prays to Mars, god of war, for victory. Palamon prays to Venus, goddess of love, to win the love of Emilia, sister of Hippolyta and a princess of Athens. Emilia is torn, flattered, humbled, and distressed that two men, cousins, would fight to win her love, so she prays to Diana to either remain unwed (so that the men who both love her might live), or to wed the one that truly loves her.

These are all pagan gods, so at first glance, the play might seem more pagan than Christian. But is that all there is to it?

Mars May Win the Battle, but Venus and Diana Prevail in the End?
In Christianity, the crucifixion of Jesus was viewed as a “stumbling block” that confounds earthly wisdom: The crucifiers seem to win out because they have executed Jesus. Violence wins the battle. And yet whether we take the resurrection literally, with Jesus rising from the grave, or figuratively, with Jesus living on in his followers and in strangers who are in harmony with his message, it seems that Jesus and his movement are victorious in the end. Jesus taught love of enemies, and that if one strikes you on one cheek, offer the other, and do not resist. From the view of worldly thinking, Christians who follow such advice would appear to be losers, weak, always defeated.

By the time The Two Noble Kinsmen was written, English laws had become more strict regarding the mention of Christian religious and liturgical terms, so playwrights often used references to pagan gods to convey religious ideas. So the play’s ending, where Arcite prays to Mars and wins, only to be killed in an accident with a horse, may have been constructed to suggest a Christian idea about love (including romantic love, Venus), and chastity and childbirth (Diana) as being stronger and greater, in the end, than violence and war.

A Lens Through Which To View Other Plays?
Sometimes, when scholars are uncertain of the meaning of a particular passage in a given play, they look to other plays by the same playwright with similar passages or themes, to see if these other plays can shed some light on the problematic passage. This practice is not without its own flaws, because a playwright may evolve in their own thinking over the years between the writing of one play and the next. We speak of how we sometimes have a change of heart or mind. This happens to playwrights too, so what we find in one play might not be consistent with what we find in another, or have any light to shed. Yet again, it might.

So for example, scholars and critics disagree about what it means for Hamlet to give his dying voice to Fortinbras as the next king of Denmark. Is it a huge mistake, to place the future of Denmark in the hands of this rash and war-like prince? Or were some of the Danish views of Fortinbras mistaken? And is it better for Hamlet to offer the kingdom as a gift, than for Fortinbras to take it by violence?

After the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, we find this series of verses:

38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
39 But I say unto you, Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
41 And whosoever will compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
42 Give to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not away.
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies: bless them that curse you: do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which hurt you, and persecute you,
45 That ye may be the children of your father that is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to arise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust.
46 For if ye love them, which love you, what reward shall you have? Do not the Publicans even the same?
47 And if ye be friendly to your brethren only, what singular thing do ye? do not even the Publicans likewise?
48 Ye shall therefore be perfect, as your Father which is in heaven, is perfect.
People of Shakespeare’s England were required to attend church and to hear this and related gospels multiple times every year, so it would have been one of many lenses through which they would have understood Hamlet’s gift of his dying voice for Fortinbras. Love your enemies. Give generously to those who ask. Give even more than is asked of you. Fortinbras had asked for his father’s lands back, and Hamlet gives him all of Denmark.

This seems consistent with the ending of The Two Noble Kinsmen, where Arcite prays to the god of war, but dies and gives his blessing to the marriage of Palamon and Emilia. Not only does Romantic love win out in the end, but love of enemies wins as well.


[Image by Shakespeare's Globe via YouTube]

A 2018 production of The Two Noble Kinsmen from Shakespeare’s Globe in London is available to view for free on Youtube through Sunday, May 17, 2020 as part of their effort to give people staying home during the COVID-19 crisis ways to stay in touch with theater and great cultural programing. Please consider donating to Shakespeare’s Globe and to other arts organizations, if you can, during the crisis.


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Quotes from Hamlet are taken from InternetShakespeare, Modern Version, edited by David Bevington.

Quotes from the 1599 Geneva Bible, with modernized spelling, are taken from BibleGateway.com.

Quotes from the Bishops' Bible are taken from StudyBible.

Disclaimer: By noting bible passages in this blog, I do not intend to promote any religion over any other, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to point out how the Bible may have influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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Thanks for reading!
My current project is a book tentatively titled “Hamlet’s Bible,” about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

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https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html

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